Category Archives: Politics

Senior US officials implicated in nuclear black market

'Terror', Politics, , , , , , ,

An interesting post at Lenin’s Tomb asks why more isn’t being made of Sibel Edmonds’s claims about corruption in the US government.

State Secrets laws don’t permit her to talk to a judge about it, much less a television reporter, and much of the media has avoided looking too intensely at the matter. Apparently, she knows that several high-placed American officials put US nuclear materials on the black market, some of which were going to Pakistani secret police individuals with connections to ‘Al Qaeda’.

By the way, lots of work on at the moment… I’m still working on a few longer posts though.

BNP ‘in meltdown’ as numerous officials are purged

Politics, UK, , , , , , ,

Those of us on the left who’ve ever had any interest in party organisation will be all too aware how often splits can occur. The recent wrecking behaviour of Galloway supporters in Respect is a classic example. So it is great to see that a potentially much more serious split is taking place in Britain’s main fascist party, the BNP.

Two key activists in the party,  Kenny Smith and  Sadie Graham were purged from the party after they attempted to maneuver against Mark Collett, the party’s publicity officer. Collett seems quite unpopular and general opinion among many activists appears to be that he is being protected by leader Nick Griffin. I remember Collett’s appearance in a couple of TV documentaries which showed him to be a particularly unpleasant neo-Nazi.

Now, many organisers and party officials seem to be resigning in protest at Griffin’s betrayal of the party for personal reasons. This is great news, of course, because a party in disarray is an unsuccessful party. Griffin’s authority is now being directly challenged and it looks like he’ll either have to get rid of his chum Collett or face more resignations. It all stems from various dark accusations of nefarious acts connected with Collett, as well as a claim that the BNP’s ‘intelligence team’ have hacked into blog sites and deleted posts.

Read the Lancaster Unite Against Fascism post for a more coherent explanation of what has gone down, and how grave the BNP’s problems appear to be. I’m going to have a celebratory cigarette.

‘Catastrophic’ incident at Revenue & Customs

Politics, UK, , , , , ,

The UK Chancellor has this afternoon announced that HM Revenue and Customs ‘lost’ personal information on 25 million individuals.

Apparently, every single child in Britain had their data lost on two password-protected (but not encrypted) CD-ROMs which were sent to the National Accounting Office but never turned up. After the Northern Rock incident, Alistair Darling should now resign. He probably won’t yet, but I bet he’ll be gone soon.

The Tories have suggested that this is proof enough that the National ID Card project is a risk to far, and dead in the water. They’re probably right about that too.

Can’t have it both ways: the ‘Cataloonies’

Catalonia, Politics, , , , , , , ,

I don’t have much of a problem with the term ‘Cataloony’. But it does seem to be something of a handy shortcut past debating an issue which concerns a large minority of people here. John at Iberian Notes, ‘expat wanker’ according to a fan, loves using ‘Cataloony’ to describe any Catalan who dislikes the king of Spain or wants more independence for Catalonia. Statistically, some of those people probably are lunatics, so he probably scores a couple of hits with his scattershot.

The problem is, if I use the terms ‘dumb Yanks’ or ‘stupid Americans’* to describe American citizens who still support Georgey boy and his gang of no-good rats, then I’m being anti-American. Moi? But calling Catalan nationalists ‘loonies’ ain’t the same thing. See, I get more than a little whiff of hypocrisy from this. So my proposition is simple: either quit using the ‘Cataloonies’ tag or quit whining when someone has the temerity to insult one of your stupid countrymen (like your stupid president). Name calling is just as clever/silly, whatever side you’re on. It’s exactly the same thing and you can’t have it both ways.

Personally, as someone who believes in freedom of expression, I reckon that John should be able to call Catalan nationalists whatever he likes.

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*sorry, these names don’t quite have the same ring to them as Cataloonies. I’m not a very experienced name caller. It’s a short cut to thinking, really, isn’t it?

Nazi Pop Twins documentary

Language, Politics, , , , , , , , , , ,

Prussian Blue - the Nazi Pop TwinsYesterday, after watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (0/1) and Turistas (1/1) we flicked over to More 4 to watch a documentary which was first broadcast in July this year. It concerned Lamb and Lynx Gaede, the teenaged twins who comprise Prussian Blue, a Nazi pop band. I’d heard of Prussian Blue before, probably through the Popbitch message-board, but had never really given them much thought. The documentary offered some insight into these Nazi pop twins and the way they were manipulated and pushed around by their scary mother, April. The twins, aged around 14 or 15 in the film, were clearly? trying to distance themselves somewhat from the White Pride / National Vanguard movements.

The film was naturally full of unpleasant views , mostly espoused by the awful April and her equally unpleasant father. At onepoint, during a small argument about signing CDs for members of the White Pride movement, April could be heard saying to one of her daughters that she should help out for a bit and that “Then you can be as much of a cunt as you like for the rest of the evening”. I hope that Lynx and Lamb find the strength to make the break with the atrocious philosophy forced on them by their mother. She’s one of those annoying people, incidentally, who doesn’t understand language or logic: the thought that she could define racism and that what she promoted wasn’t racism because she didn’t call it that. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, the documentary is well worth watching. It should be noted that such families are extremely rare in the USA… failure to remember this would be thoroughly anti-American.The reason they don’t make many documentaries about all the other, normal families is that they probably wouldn’t be as interesting as a film about some Nazi Pop Twins.

Does it suddenly turn into Tolstoy?

Politics, UK, , , , , , ,

LITTLEJOHN: But you haven’t read the book in its totality and you have to read the book in its totality.

SELF: Why?

LITTLEJOHN: In order to understand it.

SELF: Does it turn into Tolstoy at page 205?

LITTLEJOHN: No it doesn’t turn into Tolstoy. I don’t set out to be Tolstoy. It is a much more complex book than that.

SELF: Than Tolstoy?

OK, so it’s from a few years back, but I still find this ‘clash’ between pernicious right-wing cock, Dick Littlejohn, and actual writer, Will Self, makes for genuinely uplifting reading. Littlejohn is so markedly out of his depth when met with a truly intelligent man that he looks utterly absurd.

Also, have a look at the reviews for his books on Amazon. Some of them (particularly the one comparing Dick to Plato) are more than a little tongue-in-cheek.

Two dinosaurs exchange insults

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As you have probably seen, Hugo Chavez was told to shut up the other day by king Juan Carlos during an international conference. Chavez was boorish as usual, using flamboyant insults to lambaste former Spanish president Aznar as a ‘fascist’ (not strictly correct – Aznar was a falangist, which isn’t quite the same thing). When current president Zapatero stepped in to say ‘Steady on, old boy’, Chavez wouldn’t stop interrupting him, despite his microphone being turned off. At this point, Juan Carlos did his bit for international diplomacy by saying “Why don’t you just shut up?”.

The general feeling in the media is that most Spaniards are pretty happy about their king taking Chavez down a peg, but the people I’ve spoken with don’t sound quite so pleased. Chavez was being a complete prick, as usual, but JC didn’t make himself look much more civilised by telling him to shut up, and then storming out of the conference. A friend said to me “He shouldn’t have said that… that’s not how you talk to people at these sorts of events”. And I agree. The king, for all the short term ‘macho’ points he might have earned, didn’t do much to make Spain look like the modern, civilised democracy we know it to be. He may also have piled some more risk onto Spain’s relations with Latin America, which could affect trade and the economy. No, it was an unhelpful flare of temper and not much more.

One man did make Spain look good, and that was Zapatero. In the coverage on the UK’s Channel 4 News, ZP was praised for his composure and diplomacy. Oh, and apparently, our cousin Mariano Rajoy telephoned the king to thank him for sticking up for Aznar… but failed to call Zapatero to thank him. What a petty, poisonous little man Rajoy is. He’s almost worse than Aznar.

Vatican: we heart fascists

Politics, Spain, , , , , , , ,

In an utterly unsurprising move, the Vatican has beatified 498 Roman Catholics who died ‘as martyrs’ in the Spanish Civil War. These men and women died at the hands of leftist (mostly anarchist) fighters during that terrible conflict.  The Catholic Church has been criticised for not recognising victims from the other side in the war: but why would they? After all, the Catholic Church in Spain openly supported Francisco Franco’s  mutiny: that’s the main reason Catholic officials were attacked. Before you apologists-for-fascism start foaming at the mouth,  I’m not trying to justify the fact that monks, nuns and priests were killed. I will, however, point out that plenty of Catholic officials were agents of the fascists, and that when the Church (or its officials) took sides in the war, it had to expect casualties.

The timing of this beatification is also somewhat mysterious (read: very well planned). It coincides with the introduction of a new law here which will change the way the crimes of the Civil War and dictatorship are officially remembered. Apparently, part of the new law demands that churches remove Franco-era memorials. Don’t forget: however many died at the hands of the disparate Republican forces, there’s no question that the fascists killed far more innocents, both during and after the Civil War. The Church was also arguably the greatest victor of the Civil War: it was handed total control of education and morality in Spain for decades.

That the Vatican should indulge some of its more right-wing supporters in a move clearly aimed at dividing opinion in Spain, should surprise no one.  This is, after all, the same organisation which is led by a former Hitler-youth member, an organisation which  persists in claiming that European countries are intentionally spreading HIV-aids via wicked condoms in African countries.  It seems a shame that such an antiquated and morally dubious body should  hold sway over so many people around the world. In fact, over the last century it is very likely that Christianity has been responsible for more death and unhappiness than Islam. The sooner we rid ourselves of the lot of them, the better.

On the Catalan language

Catalonia, Language, Politics, ,

One of the big points for debate here is language. Here – as in many other places around the world – language often seems inextricably linked to culture, politics and identity. The issue of Catalan versus Castilian Spanish is probably the most abused and  over-discussed issue in Catalonia. I’m not really interested in prolonging this pretty irritating debate but I would like to try to clarify a couple of the key sticking-points.

First, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) – the Catalan Republican Left – and their language policy. ERC are the fourth biggest party in Catalonia (and third partner in the regional government, la Generalitat) and their policy is pretty much totally dictated by nationalism. Culture and language, of course, play a major role in their strategy. And from time to time, they propose policies or laws which  are frankly unbelievable. Take, for example, the proposal that it should be illegal for teachers to speak in any language but Catalan while they’re on school premises. That’s a ridiculous policy which regularly earns the well deserved moniker ‘fascist’. It is clear that their policy is directed against speakers of Castilian Spanish and thus anyone who is ‘non-Catalan’.

As far as I see, ERC consists of several different movements. I have some sympathy for the ‘republican/left’ element of the party because I’m a left-winger and would rather live in a republic than a kingdom. Unfortunately, the dominant front in ERC is extremely nationalist and sometimes verges on the racist. I get the impression that they probably wouldn’t much like me as a member, because I use the odd Spanish word when speaking Catalan. I’m not from here, remember.

The crazier of ERC’s policies are reminiscent of laws passed by Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship in Spain. Under the Generalissimo, the country was reinvented as the home of Catholicism, empire and homogeneity. Of course, this was  revisionism gone mad. Spain has always been an amalgamation of different kingdoms, peoples and cultures. Passing laws to cancel that out has never worked.

This is another sticking point. If you read other English-language blogs from Catalonia, you might get the impression that the story of Catalan being banned under Franco was made up by Catalan nationalists. This is completely untrue. Certain bloggers seem to have a perverse interest in undermining the history of Catalan, Catalonia and the repression during the Franco years. Make no mistake: under Franco, hundreds of laws and judgments were passed which effectively outlawed the use of the Catalan language. At best, the blogs which promulgate this myth are disingenuous. I reckon that they’re aiming for an audience-pleasing tone of contrariety, which is, after all, the natural tone for successful blogs. Doesn’t make it true, though.

ERC breaks Tripartit in Barcelona

Catalonia, Politics, , ,

Yesterday afternoon, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya mayoral candidate, Jordi Portabella, pulled out of talks to convene a tripartite city government in Barcelona. His move has shocked PSC officials and, apparently, even his own party leadership.

As El Periódico points out, ERC lost 43,000 votes in the recent local elections. This disaster called for one of two moves from Portabella; his immediate resignation or some sort of major strategy change. Evidently, he considers himself above resignation.

It’s evident that while outwardly backing Portabella, the ERC leadership don’t agree with this tactic. To put ERC back in to opposition after a period of shared government is not part of party strategy… but with some voters dissatisfied with the modern party (they’ve done much to drop their nasty, racist image of previous decades) voting for PxC and other more extremist groups, Esquerra has lost its way. Portabella’s move will likely precipitate a major internal crisis for the party.