Throw Britain out of the EU and humiliate the country as much as possible as it's given the boot.
And then: really make this country pay. Begin by closing off all the opportunities to the "bullshitters" (In the Guardian's economics editor's words) that form the mainstay of this country's economy:
[Japanese and Germans have strong economies]
The French have an ultra-competitive manufacturing
base that specialises in food and drink; the
Scandinavians are a dab hand at mobile phones; the
Americans do computers, aircraft and movies; even the
poor, benighted Italians have upmarket designer
clothes. So what is Britain good at? Where does the UK
fit in this world of changing economic geography, in
which nations will increasingly concentrate on the
things they do best? The answer is simple.
We count the money and we do the bullshit.
Britain, on the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair's
arrival in Downing Street, is a place whose default
mode for earning its crust is to employ the gift of
the gab. The Germans may have the engineers, the
Japanese may know how to organise a production line,
but the Brits have the barristers, the journalists,
the management consultants and the men and women who
think that making up jingles and slogans in order to
flog Pot Noodles and similar products is a serious
job. It has the deal-makers in the City who make fat
fees by convincing investors to launch bids for
companies, and the corporate spin doctors who tell
former pals in financial journalism that tycoon X will
make a better fist at running Ripoff plc than tycoon
Y.
It has the publishers and it has the "film
development" companies, some of which have actually
been known to produce a film.
The four iconic jobs in 21st-century Britain,
according to a thinktank called the Work Foundation,
are not scientists, engineers, teachers and nurses but
hairdressers, celebrities, management consultants and managers.
These jobs are very evanescent and depend on social good will.
The Brits can repent at leisure. Or maybe that's what they want. Apart from bits of London, this country is a dump.
Not only is this a consequence of delusions, it's also a cause of them, a liferaft.
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
EU and democracy don't have to combine
@Kidogo. A literate and persuasive post. But surely good governance led by an oligarchic elite who secure the rule of law is more important than democracy. Per se.
Britain has had the former since earlier than any other country, but was a latecomer to democracy. In between, by the standards of the day, the British were more prosperous and free than other Europeans.
Democracy is so over-rated. AS someone said about fears of introducing democracy to some Arab countries where Islamists have popular support: democracy. One person, one vote. Once.
EU legislation is complex. People don't want to know what goes on underneath the bonnet so long as the car propels them forward.
Euroscepticism is actually at an all time low in Britain; why not just let the eurocrats get on with it?
There are checks and balances in Brussels, the ecology is much more complex than people think: a network of lobbyosts, NGOS, business organisations, all the multinationals, law firms, trades unions, member states, regional assembly associations...
bascially it is where Europe's elites meet and transact business. There is an indirect democracy because one way or another they represent people (qua inhabitants of their city, qua members of their profession) back home. And what's wrong with that? Plato talked about leadership as a skill; we don't vote on which of the airline passengers should become the pilot. The idea that oligarchies know best on behalf of the people has honourable antecedents - and in fact operates in many areas of our national life.
No one is going to vote for a system of pan European democracy, with international parties with manifestoes in 21 languages (who is gonna be party leader?). It's just utopian.
And, even supposing it were to happen, who wants populist slogans, cheesy politicians, and all the attendant debasement - perhaps the broader the democracy the baser it becomes. The lowest common denominator of 500m people is iwhat? Fascism perhaps. Anti-Russian poses.
Hatred of immigrants.
Another proposal: if we do go down the route of democracy. Before anyone looks at the EU. Takes it apart, Asks basic questions of the eurocracy, people should ask some pretty basic questions about the city of London, another place which attracts bright people and wields great power. What the hell is it there for? Who does it benefit? No really. Why do we put up the fat bonuses. This is a democracy is it not? Why are we swalloing camels and straining at gnats. I bet you many eurosceptics are actually retired losers whose railing against the jeunesse doree elite in Brussels arte expressing an alienation at untramelled power which could with equal justice be aimed at the city.
There is no natural law that mandates capitalism, or the flawed version that passes for it there.
Lostcause: you're absolutely right.
Britain has had the former since earlier than any other country, but was a latecomer to democracy. In between, by the standards of the day, the British were more prosperous and free than other Europeans.
Democracy is so over-rated. AS someone said about fears of introducing democracy to some Arab countries where Islamists have popular support: democracy. One person, one vote. Once.
EU legislation is complex. People don't want to know what goes on underneath the bonnet so long as the car propels them forward.
Euroscepticism is actually at an all time low in Britain; why not just let the eurocrats get on with it?
There are checks and balances in Brussels, the ecology is much more complex than people think: a network of lobbyosts, NGOS, business organisations, all the multinationals, law firms, trades unions, member states, regional assembly associations...
bascially it is where Europe's elites meet and transact business. There is an indirect democracy because one way or another they represent people (qua inhabitants of their city, qua members of their profession) back home. And what's wrong with that? Plato talked about leadership as a skill; we don't vote on which of the airline passengers should become the pilot. The idea that oligarchies know best on behalf of the people has honourable antecedents - and in fact operates in many areas of our national life.
No one is going to vote for a system of pan European democracy, with international parties with manifestoes in 21 languages (who is gonna be party leader?). It's just utopian.
And, even supposing it were to happen, who wants populist slogans, cheesy politicians, and all the attendant debasement - perhaps the broader the democracy the baser it becomes. The lowest common denominator of 500m people is iwhat? Fascism perhaps. Anti-Russian poses.
Hatred of immigrants.
Another proposal: if we do go down the route of democracy. Before anyone looks at the EU. Takes it apart, Asks basic questions of the eurocracy, people should ask some pretty basic questions about the city of London, another place which attracts bright people and wields great power. What the hell is it there for? Who does it benefit? No really. Why do we put up the fat bonuses. This is a democracy is it not? Why are we swalloing camels and straining at gnats. I bet you many eurosceptics are actually retired losers whose railing against the jeunesse doree elite in Brussels arte expressing an alienation at untramelled power which could with equal justice be aimed at the city.
There is no natural law that mandates capitalism, or the flawed version that passes for it there.
Lostcause: you're absolutely right.
Monday, 4 June 2007
Martin Kettle on Russia
Responnse to Martin Kettle's
North: why did the Czechs avoid massacres and the Poles didn't? And why, if the Russians were so bad, did the Hungarians have considerable freedoms. Why, if Russia was so bad, could East Germany have had its liberty had only the west consented to a neutralised united Germany?
Thanks for persisting through my typing errors but really you don't have to give me the conventional wisdom, which is all about making the west feel uncomplicatedly better but doesn't do much to contribute to subtle understanding of the cold war or what really went on in the east bloc.
If the Americans had not had a simplistic view of the cold war and their supposed role in winning it they probably wouldn't have blundered into Iraq. The experience of the east European transformations taught them falslely that apply military pressure and bluff tough guy threats at one end, backed by military action to follow this through if necessary, to dictatorships, and democracy will emerge at the other end. Automatically.
That didn't prove to be the case.
Every culture, every system is different and the matter of whether threat of force really can change a system - the US is applying it now to Iran - ahas to be questioned.
Every time I meet an east European who whinges and whines about Soviet occupation I ask: what the fuck are you complaining about? You are here aren't you. Your languages, your cultures, even in countries of 1m people, survived. You are remarkably intelligent, secptical and well-educated. You use your brain more than the average American. You lived okay - it was like being a student all your life. Shabby, easy, bohemian. No car. No responsibilities.
Your oppression can't have been that bad if it taught you to think critically. (Or conversely if the system was as bad for your capacity for indeopendent thought as you say why are we listenting to you know complaining about Russia?)
Their towns had coal pollution but were free of the western garbage culture that now defaces their cities. They read a huge number of books and had access to good classical culture. I lived in a small Czech town in the immediate post communist period and they had decent, if dull lives. Is it better to work in a call centre in today's globalised UK? Not necessarily. I never met anyone who knew anyone who had been sent to a uranium mine.
The war and stalinism was hell but it was hell for all Europeans then - a psychopathology that affected everyone, who pulled the trigger was just a detail. But eastern Europe after teh fifties truly settled down. It was not Hell, and some of the more primitive countries came a long way in a short time.
As for their claim that post 1989 they have come a long way in a short time, democracy and hi tech economies (viz Estonia) the east Europeans breastbeat themselves and say: all this despite Russian occupation. Aren't we marvellous? Perhaps the socialist system created the basis on which subsequent success could be rapidly achieved.
Which is why this success story cannot necessarily be applied to other parts of the world.
Americans think, in their narcissistic way: oh look, we did this with eastern Europe. We'll do it with Iraq. No time.
Perhaps it was the particular conditions of eastern Europe, and their pasts, including the sociliaist system that did and the US was just an onlooker.
Another good thing about Russian occupation/socialism is that it kept the lid firmly crewed on native catholic/bigot tendencies - viz Poland today.
Very few east Europeans seem to have any insight whatsoever with perspective into their recent histories. They are too much part of it I suppose. Outsiders are beholden to have a broader view.
It's funny that the cold war was all supposed to be about the open way of thinking versus the monolithic one. Quite apart from the fact that some of the most subtle and flexible minds i have met have been Russian or east Europeans, I am amused by the fact that the very historiography of the cold war itself is monolithic - no alternative interpretations circulate.
North, I have been writing about east Europe for 15 years, and many, many east European have been coming to London and been shown around, or moved here. Their first reactions are so often disappointment, but then they learn to get with the narrative: the Russian period bad, freedom unalloyed good.
Zabka: I once climbed Zniezka, the mountains that straddles Czech and Poland. It was easy to tell the Poles apart. They were naked from the waist and twirled their moustaches, and shouted a lot. The Czechs were more controlled.
commenthere on Putin and his opposition to the missile shield, which gets a lot of sympathy. And gives me a chance to be nice and contarian abouyt the east bloc.
North: why did the Czechs avoid massacres and the Poles didn't? And why, if the Russians were so bad, did the Hungarians have considerable freedoms. Why, if Russia was so bad, could East Germany have had its liberty had only the west consented to a neutralised united Germany?
Thanks for persisting through my typing errors but really you don't have to give me the conventional wisdom, which is all about making the west feel uncomplicatedly better but doesn't do much to contribute to subtle understanding of the cold war or what really went on in the east bloc.
If the Americans had not had a simplistic view of the cold war and their supposed role in winning it they probably wouldn't have blundered into Iraq. The experience of the east European transformations taught them falslely that apply military pressure and bluff tough guy threats at one end, backed by military action to follow this through if necessary, to dictatorships, and democracy will emerge at the other end. Automatically.
That didn't prove to be the case.
Every culture, every system is different and the matter of whether threat of force really can change a system - the US is applying it now to Iran - ahas to be questioned.
Every time I meet an east European who whinges and whines about Soviet occupation I ask: what the fuck are you complaining about? You are here aren't you. Your languages, your cultures, even in countries of 1m people, survived. You are remarkably intelligent, secptical and well-educated. You use your brain more than the average American. You lived okay - it was like being a student all your life. Shabby, easy, bohemian. No car. No responsibilities.
Your oppression can't have been that bad if it taught you to think critically. (Or conversely if the system was as bad for your capacity for indeopendent thought as you say why are we listenting to you know complaining about Russia?)
Their towns had coal pollution but were free of the western garbage culture that now defaces their cities. They read a huge number of books and had access to good classical culture. I lived in a small Czech town in the immediate post communist period and they had decent, if dull lives. Is it better to work in a call centre in today's globalised UK? Not necessarily. I never met anyone who knew anyone who had been sent to a uranium mine.
The war and stalinism was hell but it was hell for all Europeans then - a psychopathology that affected everyone, who pulled the trigger was just a detail. But eastern Europe after teh fifties truly settled down. It was not Hell, and some of the more primitive countries came a long way in a short time.
As for their claim that post 1989 they have come a long way in a short time, democracy and hi tech economies (viz Estonia) the east Europeans breastbeat themselves and say: all this despite Russian occupation. Aren't we marvellous? Perhaps the socialist system created the basis on which subsequent success could be rapidly achieved.
Which is why this success story cannot necessarily be applied to other parts of the world.
Americans think, in their narcissistic way: oh look, we did this with eastern Europe. We'll do it with Iraq. No time.
Perhaps it was the particular conditions of eastern Europe, and their pasts, including the sociliaist system that did and the US was just an onlooker.
Another good thing about Russian occupation/socialism is that it kept the lid firmly crewed on native catholic/bigot tendencies - viz Poland today.
Very few east Europeans seem to have any insight whatsoever with perspective into their recent histories. They are too much part of it I suppose. Outsiders are beholden to have a broader view.
It's funny that the cold war was all supposed to be about the open way of thinking versus the monolithic one. Quite apart from the fact that some of the most subtle and flexible minds i have met have been Russian or east Europeans, I am amused by the fact that the very historiography of the cold war itself is monolithic - no alternative interpretations circulate.
North, I have been writing about east Europe for 15 years, and many, many east European have been coming to London and been shown around, or moved here. Their first reactions are so often disappointment, but then they learn to get with the narrative: the Russian period bad, freedom unalloyed good.
Zabka: I once climbed Zniezka, the mountains that straddles Czech and Poland. It was easy to tell the Poles apart. They were naked from the waist and twirled their moustaches, and shouted a lot. The Czechs were more controlled.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Cold wat
One of the problems with the Iraq war stems from Americans believe they won the cold war through force.
A lot of us are quite well disposed to Russia/USSR anyway. Certainly post Soviet Russia. The idea that it's aggressive is a fantasy.
Let me tell ya a little story.
I have liked Russia since I happened to be in Moscow on 19 August 1991 - just a short tourist stop-over - went down to Red Square to inspect Lenin and found it blocked by tanks. It was the coup whose failure led to the end of the USSR. I went to the Russian parliament, was lifted through the crowds and sat on the roof of a bus close to where Yelstin made his famous speech.
The crowds said something like "English journalist. Let him through." I doubt English journalists are held in as high regard these days.
The veteran Jonathan Steele of this paper is fair to the Russians. Other writers on the Guardian have their glorification-of-anyone-but the Russian biases.
When I went to the Russian embassy in Kensington recently to get a visa it was wonderfully laid back.
The single guard looked hungover and the beautiful, willowy girl in reception crossed out the little chit that stated the wrong collection day and had me thinking I would miss my flight, with a very sexy, wrist-revealing wave and sang, airily and unconcernedly, "Don't worry. Is old information." Compare this to the boot clicking, butt-clenching anal retentiveness of the US embassy presence with its huge imperial eagle in Grosvenor square and the invasiveness of US immigration procedures.
The Russians have suffered and lost. They have gone through hellfire. That sort of experience gives people perspective on life, distance.
#Americans### have not, in my opinion, which is why they are still in the narcissistic, self centred, enormously self-aggrandising period of their national development.
I like Russians. They left Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and ten other countries peacefully in 1992-93.
Now, my friend. There are tens of thousands of US troops wasting their time in bases all over Europe.
#When are you going to leave? The door is over there.
Thank you.
Here, I tell an American, You've been brainwashed mate. You didn't win the cold war. the USSR collapsed because it's economy failed. The Cold War was just something to scare the kiddies with, a bogeyman. There was no danger. Russia was never gonna invade anyone.
A lot of us are quite well disposed to Russia/USSR anyway. Certainly post Soviet Russia. The idea that it's aggressive is a fantasy.
Let me tell ya a little story.
I have liked Russia since I happened to be in Moscow on 19 August 1991 - just a short tourist stop-over - went down to Red Square to inspect Lenin and found it blocked by tanks. It was the coup whose failure led to the end of the USSR. I went to the Russian parliament, was lifted through the crowds and sat on the roof of a bus close to where Yelstin made his famous speech.
The crowds said something like "English journalist. Let him through." I doubt English journalists are held in as high regard these days.
The veteran Jonathan Steele of this paper is fair to the Russians. Other writers on the Guardian have their glorification-of-anyone-but the Russian biases.
When I went to the Russian embassy in Kensington recently to get a visa it was wonderfully laid back.
The single guard looked hungover and the beautiful, willowy girl in reception crossed out the little chit that stated the wrong collection day and had me thinking I would miss my flight, with a very sexy, wrist-revealing wave and sang, airily and unconcernedly, "Don't worry. Is old information." Compare this to the boot clicking, butt-clenching anal retentiveness of the US embassy presence with its huge imperial eagle in Grosvenor square and the invasiveness of US immigration procedures.
The Russians have suffered and lost. They have gone through hellfire. That sort of experience gives people perspective on life, distance.
#Americans### have not, in my opinion, which is why they are still in the narcissistic, self centred, enormously self-aggrandising period of their national development.
I like Russians. They left Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and ten other countries peacefully in 1992-93.
Now, my friend. There are tens of thousands of US troops wasting their time in bases all over Europe.
#When are you going to leave? The door is over there.
Thank you.
Russia again
As others dispute why the world war ended, I weigh in.
The end of the cold war? I think Russian economic weakness was the overwhelming factor, but the US belief otherwise has exercised a baleful foreign policy influence since. The average American thinks we won WWI, WWII, and...the cold war, giving false confidence - and gave the neocon fish sea to swim in.
The false idea that the cold war was won through armament led to flase lessons being learnt that dog America today.
It is important to remember that during the Cold War neo-cons had adamantly opposed d�tente. They didn�t believe that the US should learn to coexist with the Soviet Union, insisting instead that it could win an uncontested victory. Coexistence, they argued, implied accommodation, which would turn into appeasement, which would soon dissolve into capitulation. After the Soviet Union unexpectedly fell apart, they did not revisit, or apologise for, their overestimation of the Communist system�s resilience and strength.
On the contrary, they felt totally vindicated. Although they had been spectacularly blind-sided, they concluded that they had been brilliantly prescient.
Excessively pleased with themselves, the neo-cons drew two lessons from the collapse of Communism.
#First, threats should be eliminated, not managed.
#Second, American security is invariably enhanced by the transformation of autocracies into democracies.
That the democratic transformation of Eastern Europe was triggered not by an invasion but by the withdrawal of a foreign Russian army apparently made little impression on them. All they knew was that the threat to the US from the Communist bloc had been eliminated by the more or less successful transformation of its former members into democracies.
The end of the cold war? I think Russian economic weakness was the overwhelming factor, but the US belief otherwise has exercised a baleful foreign policy influence since. The average American thinks we won WWI, WWII, and...the cold war, giving false confidence - and gave the neocon fish sea to swim in.
The false idea that the cold war was won through armament led to flase lessons being learnt that dog America today.
It is important to remember that during the Cold War neo-cons had adamantly opposed d�tente. They didn�t believe that the US should learn to coexist with the Soviet Union, insisting instead that it could win an uncontested victory. Coexistence, they argued, implied accommodation, which would turn into appeasement, which would soon dissolve into capitulation. After the Soviet Union unexpectedly fell apart, they did not revisit, or apologise for, their overestimation of the Communist system�s resilience and strength.
On the contrary, they felt totally vindicated. Although they had been spectacularly blind-sided, they concluded that they had been brilliantly prescient.
Excessively pleased with themselves, the neo-cons drew two lessons from the collapse of Communism.
#First, threats should be eliminated, not managed.
#Second, American security is invariably enhanced by the transformation of autocracies into democracies.
That the democratic transformation of Eastern Europe was triggered not by an invasion but by the withdrawal of a foreign Russian army apparently made little impression on them. All they knew was that the threat to the US from the Communist bloc had been eliminated by the more or less successful transformation of its former members into democracies.
Yeah, Estonia
Some guy writes further in the TGA post in the Guardian that 4m Brits a year go to America but if we don't like it we can always go to Estoia.
"But while that's being considered please consider going elsewhere. I hear Estonia is lovely this time of year. Check it out."
I write back to say that:
In case what he was really saying was "Ok, if you Brit guys love Russia so much why don't you go to Estonia, where there's a war going on. New Beirut. Russian spies, infiltrators, cold war, commies coming back, burning cars, end of democracy. Ha ha. "
I can assure him that the biggest danger to Estonia's security comes from the British stagnighters who already go there in large numbers and vomit on its payments.
When I went to eastern Europe in the late 80s/early 90s it was a silent and peaceful as a large museum. Now of course it's turned into a large gogo bar/casino, attracting stormtroopers from the unmarried ranks of Middle England.
It's ironic that the Estonians worry about the Russians, Russian invasion, etc, when the biggest threat to their existence probably comes from the right of 500m Europeans to come and settle in their once small, beautiful and peaceful country.
Peaceful because communism was so inefficient at generating things like Walmarts and gas stations and casinos.
Closed borders didn't keep out the outside world.
"But while that's being considered please consider going elsewhere. I hear Estonia is lovely this time of year. Check it out."
I write back to say that:
In case what he was really saying was "Ok, if you Brit guys love Russia so much why don't you go to Estonia, where there's a war going on. New Beirut. Russian spies, infiltrators, cold war, commies coming back, burning cars, end of democracy. Ha ha. "
I can assure him that the biggest danger to Estonia's security comes from the British stagnighters who already go there in large numbers and vomit on its payments.
When I went to eastern Europe in the late 80s/early 90s it was a silent and peaceful as a large museum. Now of course it's turned into a large gogo bar/casino, attracting stormtroopers from the unmarried ranks of Middle England.
It's ironic that the Estonians worry about the Russians, Russian invasion, etc, when the biggest threat to their existence probably comes from the right of 500m Europeans to come and settle in their once small, beautiful and peaceful country.
Peaceful because communism was so inefficient at generating things like Walmarts and gas stations and casinos.
Closed borders didn't keep out the outside world.
On America's poor border manners deterring visitors....
There are some fantastically literate contributions attacking the US in the Guardian today. Makes you realise what the country is losing.
On Saturday the Russian ambassador came on to CIF to defend his country's position on its differences with the UK. It was emollient and respectful, talking about Russia's complete non desire for a new cold war. (If he thought he was talking to a population of men-children spoonfed on fear by their russophobic media he didn't show it.)
I suspect we will wait a long time before the ambassador of the leader of the free and democratic world comes out of the London "Green Zone" (Mayfair) and does the same. We're vassals of course. Don't need to be addressed as equals.
Countries do change. The historian Gordon Craig began his epic book on the Germans with descriptions of a placid, peaceful, democratic people, the best eductaed in Europe, provincial, interested only in their own affairs, living in their beautiful, well tended cities, happy to let invasions pass over and pass by. He was quoting a historian decribing the German states in the mid 19th c.
I am not saying the USA is The Third Reich, it's facile and pointless these historical analogies, (like those neocons who have anointed more Hitlers and more Chamberlains than I have had hot dinners)
But countries do change.
On Saturday the Russian ambassador came on to CIF to defend his country's position on its differences with the UK. It was emollient and respectful, talking about Russia's complete non desire for a new cold war. (If he thought he was talking to a population of men-children spoonfed on fear by their russophobic media he didn't show it.)
I suspect we will wait a long time before the ambassador of the leader of the free and democratic world comes out of the London "Green Zone" (Mayfair) and does the same. We're vassals of course. Don't need to be addressed as equals.
Countries do change. The historian Gordon Craig began his epic book on the Germans with descriptions of a placid, peaceful, democratic people, the best eductaed in Europe, provincial, interested only in their own affairs, living in their beautiful, well tended cities, happy to let invasions pass over and pass by. He was quoting a historian decribing the German states in the mid 19th c.
I am not saying the USA is The Third Reich, it's facile and pointless these historical analogies, (like those neocons who have anointed more Hitlers and more Chamberlains than I have had hot dinners)
But countries do change.
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