Harry’s Place

This makes me feel a little better about not paying anything for that last radiohead album (OK Colin I liked it - I promise to buy the CD!)

I saw a band from the same period as the Smiths on Jools Holland the other day and remembered how much I had liked them so I wonder what Mr T thought of James at the time?

Hmm. James were a bit ‘post Smiths’, really weren’t they? They had the ideosyncratic frontman thing going for them, and also the emasculated maleness, that was so modish at that time.

I remember seeing them play, and everybody sitting down during ‘Sit Down’, and thinking: actually, this is a bit cringeworthy.

James’s (Sometimes) Lester Piggot song is one of my all time favourites, and Laid is a classic, classic album.

I can’t f-ing stand Radiohead (”Creep” apart). Whingy, whiny, self-obsessed, self-pitying, self-righteous, smug, metropolitan, tedium. Yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk.

if the Manic Street Preachers had “bigged up” HP, that would have been a different matter.

Sorry

I seem to remember Colin Greenwood referring admirably to Paul Berman’s ‘Terror and Liberalism’ on Radiohead’s website, and being surprised given that an album title like ‘Hail to the Thief’ (i.e. George Bush) suggested more of an affinity with the likes of Michael Moore. Then it occurred to me that it was just possible they each have their own individual views on the world, and probably didn’t sleep in the same gigantic bed like The Monkees.

I believe that one of their wives is Israeli, and my 10 shekels says it’s Colin Greenwood.

Colin, love the new album, by the way - proper songs and everything.

Do the Pogues count as a “great British band”? Certainly they brushed greatness, but British? Up to a point they were.

Brave New World. I’m hardly typical of the HP demographic. I discovered Geras and Kamm here, and now read them faithfully.

Come to think of it, I kinda like the Brave New World.

Congrats on that good mention.

No, it is Colin’s brother, Jonathan who has an Israeli wife.

Do the Pogues count as a “great British band”? Certainly they brushed greatness, but British? Up to a point they were.

First time I saw Shane MacGowan he was singing in a cockney accent.

Were the Smiths before James? The eighties is a bit of a blur to me. I remember The The and The Teardrop explodes but apart from that its all a bit unclear.

The nurses in old people’s homes are going to have to know an awful lot about obscure music in about 20 years time.

It is funny getting older, as the music of your vital youth becomes the sound-track to the changing nappies, and the making of packed lunches.

I’m 40 today. I listen to 6music. I read the Word. These publications are made for people of my age. They have features on “new and up and coming stuff”, but the substance is focuses on the old and the familiar. Radiohead. Morrissey. The Clash.

When I’m ancient, I’ll still be listening to all of this.

Or, alternatively, perhaps - like Will Self - I’ll give up on pop and rock altogether, and decide that Radio 3 is the only station worth listening to.

David T, you are a child of the 60s in so many ways!
(I never thought I could bring myself to say “Will Self is right”, but, well, erm, Will Self is right)

Eh, child of the seventies more like - look at the post title.

“Here’s four sentences, now go start your own blog!”

If anyone’s confused about the title of this post, it’s a reference to Radiohead’s first single, which was a cover of the Anita Dobson classic “Anyone Can Fall in Love”.

It is a reference to both of those… applause for picking it up.

Happy birthday, and thanks for the correction. I’m 36 and discovered classical music for the first time a few weeks ago. It wasn’t bad at all, although for ideological reasons I hope I don’t pursue it much further. I see my friends collections peppered with more and more classical and I think, “wankers - you think you’re soooo sophisticated”.

From Morrisey the Misery to Yowling Tom Yorke. What a great guy to go out dancing with you must have been.

“I can’t f-ing stand Radiohead (”Creep” apart). Whingy, whiny, self-obsessed, self-pitying, self-righteous, smug, metropolitan, tedium. Yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk.”

Not to mention a terrible singing voice and lousy lyrics.

“A sick bag saved my life” - blegh, blerrch

‘Do the Pogues count as a “great British band”?’

I always think of the Pogues as a London band, rather than a British, or indeed Irish band.

Same with the Libertines.

“ideological reasons” for not pursuing classical music.

Such as?

This is one of the loathsome things about the misguided age ushered in by the radicals of 1968 - - bloated and preposterous excuses for philistinism

(am currently on an Orlande de Lassus tip myself, which wouldn’t qualify as classical, predating it , you see - and visually is not as if even the finest contemporary artist is likely to outdo Fra Angelico, is it?)

“although for ideological reasons I hope I don’t pursue it much further”.

Well done, TJ. One of the best spoof posts I’ve seen lately.

(Removes Fela Kuti CD, puts on Gotterdammerung).

This is one of the loathsome things about the misguided age ushered in by the radicals of 1968 - - bloated and preposterous excuses for philistinism

Oh stop whinging - even I like a bit of Rimsky-Korsakov and indeed I spent part of Mr T’s party talking to the lovely wardy about jazz (you remember, it was the bit where you were off chasing the women.)

James are touring this year. ‘Laid’ is an all-time favourite although you’re right, DT, about the ’sitting down’ thing.

And Virgin Media have just added Street Spirit to their Music on Demand offering. Which is ace (to keep with the 80s theme).

Yeah, but what you’re missing is this.

The sort of people who follow Radiohead and the Smiths, and other bands like that, have a very personal relationship with their band. They want to share the band with their closest of friends, but not with the hoi polloi.

Being “misunderstood” is a lot of what this vibe is about. So, if you dismiss a cult band as “whiney” or say that “all their songs sound the same” or that they’re “self pitying”, then that just goes to show how, tragically, you don’t ‘get’ the band, you’ve missed the point, and so on.

Your scorn strengthens our fandom.

I wouldn’t consider the member of any kind of élite the sort of person who puts “the” before “hoi polloi”.

These semi-educated ignoramati are welcome to their sniffy and tedious bands and their “personal” relationship with them, which above all seems reminisicent with a teenage boy’s “personal” relationship with page 3 of the Sun.

(I’m not sure why I am feeling so abusive today, so please don’t take this too personally)

Like Johnny, I hate jazz.

I do love Lassus though. I recommend Gesualdo to you. Top guy. A toff who did his wife in, along with her lover, in classy crime of passion.

Then wrote a lot of fabulous and very miserable music.

Sounds like something out of a Browning poem.

Then [Colin Greenwood] tells me how interested he’s become in the books of Nick Cohen, Oliver Kamm and Andrew Anthony, the blogger Norman Geras and the blog/website Harry’s Place

I got a gist of that from a Q interview with them late last year, although it wasn’t quite so explicit. I think he mentioned reading What’s Left.

Anyway - maybe worth asking him for a guest post!?

If those are his politics, I’d love to have to seen his face when the title of album 6 was proposed. Lots of eye-rolling, no doubt.

If I was Thom Yorke I’d be sorely tempted to announce that I’d just written a fantastic new song called “Tony Bliar, More Like”.

As in:

Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise?

?

Radiohead is played a lot on Radio3.

“A toff who did his wife in, along with her lover, in classy crime of passion.”

Ran ‘em through when they were locked in a passionate embrace according to legend.

Incidentally, the 16th century Neapolitan commentator Petri di Hitchini complained that the popularity of Gesualdo’s music was glamorising violence among impressionable youngsters and blamed 1560s style permissiveness for the crime.

Christophi di Hitchini was unavailable for comment, being unwell, tired and emotional.

hahaha.

Anyhow, I’ve just had my lute restrung… perhaps I’m turning in to Sting

Howay wor Dowland!

Goes to find Sting recordings of John Dowland.

Ah yes “my last Duchess” (very good!)

Don’t bother. They’re terrible.

I mean, it is nice that he bothered. But he should have saved the results for close friends and family

(It was Deutsche Grammophon’s top selling album of 2006, though…)

We’re so cultured here (even if i don’t get the point of Coriolanus)

The family historically had ties to both the British Communist Party and the Fabian Society.

Dear me! Especially the former (awful crowd), whilst the latter is just boring.

All silent and all damned, and as usual Benjamin intruding.

From http://www.mattkennard.com/index.php?id=167:

MK: I was reading on the Deadairspace blog, Colin had put a link to Nick Cohen’s new book which basically dedicates pages and pages to how Chomsky is a nutter… I was wondering – that is quite weird…

TY: Yeah we have many arguments about it…

MK: I thought you might!

TY: [Laughs] Yeah. It’s definitely a very, very sore point.

MK: I looked on Nick Cohen’s website and it said, “This has been recommended by Radiohead!”

TY: I was really furious about that. It was like, Well, no, actually, I don’t necessarily agree with this book at all. But Colin has discovered the land of the blog. And I don’t trust blogs – unless you have the nerve to put it on paper and print and publish, you should be weary of what’s being said. I think people write what they write on blogs with the luxury of knowing it won’t have any affect and therefore it can be more polemic.

I seem to remember Colin Greenwood referring admirably to Paul Berman’s ‘Terror and Liberalism’ on Radiohead’s website, and being surprised given that an album title like ‘Hail to the Thief’ (i.e. George Bush) suggested more of an affinity with the likes of Michael Moore. Then it occurred to me that it was just possible they each have their own individual views on the world, and probably didn’t sleep in the same gigantic bed like The Monkees.

It is, of course, possible to admire Paul Berman’s work while simultaneously holding a bellyful of contempt for George Bush.

Yeah but most of these bloggers have written books.

By contrast, Oliver Kamm has devoted pages and pages of his blog to illustrating the errors and misrepresentations of Chomsky’s books.

I do agree with Thom that blogs are essentially polemics. I write polemically by choice. But that doesn’t mean that they’re inherently more or less trustworthy than books. Particularly where blogs have comments sections, what you’ve written is open to immediate scrutiny. You’re forced to justify yourself in a way that all but the most high profile authors never are.

I was really furious about that

Obviously there can be no dissent from the Radiohead party line!

Silly Colin shouldn’t learn to think for himself. But that’s what happens, I suppose, if you wander off like a little lost sheep into the ‘land of the blog’.

Like Johnny, I hate jazz.
Mmmm jazz… Just yesterday someone returned my long lost CD of Herbie Mann (now that they don’t need CDs anymore these days) and listening to Coming HOme Baby brought back those halcyon late 60s when my art teacher played that track every single week during art class for 2 years and I never tired of it.

Is there anyone here who does not hate jazz, cos if not, I may have to exile myself.

It is, of course, possible to admire Paul Berman’s work while simultaneously holding a bellyful of contempt for George Bush.

I certainly hope so. Otherwise all that muscular liberalism doesn’t quite work.

I thought it was only Americans who had difficulty “getting” irony. Apparently, it is also problematic for Yorkshiremen.

Ami, I do not hate jazz, but I prefer Sun Ra and Ethiopiques to Herbie Mann. Although I implicitly put Herbie Mann in a sort of Chuck-Mangione-white-cheezy-guy category, which probably isn’t fair.

I’m 36 and discovered classical music for the first time a few weeks ago

I had it foisted on me at age six, at piano, by Catholic nuns brandishing maple-wood pointers.

You’ve but to rap my knuckles to hear a Nocturne.

Country music is my favorite at the moment.

Just put up a musical interlude…

“Yup. That’s pretty much Harry’s Place’s demographic.”

Yes you are a niche place, kinda like conservatives for communism or something.

Ami, I listen almost exclusively to jazz, interspersed with the occasional foray onto YouTube to get my fix of the videos to “Dreadlock Holiday” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.

Currently I am mostly annoying Mrs wardytron with “Filles de Kilimanjaro” by Miles Davis.

See also that Thom Yorke initially supported military action in Iraq:

http://www.pootergeek.com/?p=1480

I do listen to the odd bit of jazz (and as I was informing wardy I do like Miles Davis.)

However this morning I put on a jazz compilation and whilst trying to make a rather complicated bodged repair to a bit of exercise equipment I realsied I was listening to the kind of Dixielandesque stuff which often accompanies Laurel and Hardy as their car falls apart or they try to get a piano upstairs.

For some reason this put me in the mood not to listen to jazz for a while.

My sister bought me the 45 inch of Honolulu Baby and The Lonesome Pine for my birthday.

“It is, of course, possible to admire Paul Berman’s work while simultaneously holding a bellyful of contempt for George Bush.”

Given that Berman called Bush “the worst President ever”, I’d say it was more than just “possible” to admire the former whilst disliking the latter.

“A sick bag saved my life”

An airbag saved my life.

Only section of pub quizzes I’m ever any use in…

Following from wardytron’s comment, surely this post is also a reference to “Anybody Can Play Guitar” from “Pablo Honey”.

Venichka:

I think Nicky Wire wouldn’t think HP is good enough for him. (He has a bit of an ego, and I’m saying this as a Manics fan.)

(By the way, if you’re reading this Jonny, Radiohead are like the best band in da hole yooouniverse effa!)

Ahh Total Eclipse of the Heart. I always thought Bonnie Tyler was running around an empty house in a towelling dressing gown. I’ve just checked on youtube - not so. But I suppose thats what it appeared at the time to a 14 year old boy.

Whilst there Jennifer Rush and The Power of Love is worth a listen. (although the first shot in the video gives you a bit of a shock)

Sinitta: “I don’t believe in miracles”: that’s yer relief from yer Lassus

I also do not trust blogs. Part of the problem is that their is no organised checking process - peer review, various editors etc that journal articles and books from reputable publishing houses have. People can really write what they want - Wikipedia has the same problem.

David T is correct to note that a book is not necessarily reliable either and he is also correct to point out the errors that Noam Chomsky makes in his political books that have been highlighted on a blog by Oliver Kamm. The point is, if someone is citing a fact on a blog, anybody would be stupid to rely upon it unless they checked the source directly.

Having said all that - I think blogs are excellent. They allow the man, woman or child in the street to have their say at minimal cost and possibly even free at a public library or elsewhere where a free internet service is provided.

Blogs such as this one are written by anonymous writers, David T, Gene, Harry etc. Apart from one instance where someones identity on this blog has been leaked, readers of this blog will not know who the main posters are. This anonymously written blog has become very popular and it started no different to many other blogs with one man, a computer with access to the Internet and something he wanted to say.

The reason Harry’s Place has become popular is only in part because it is well written and regularly updated; I believe the main reason to be that what is said and the political stance of many of the blogs posts have found an agreeing audience.

Yes, there are some commentators in the boxes who do not agree with much, if anything, that is written here, but I am pleased to see they are welcome to post.

My problem with this blog, is not now and never has been the main posters, it has been that small clique of posters in the comments boxes who continually express, what are in my opinion, anti-Muslim and bigoted views. I am not in a position to comment on other blogs and I accept there are no doubt others a lot worse, but I see have seen more hostility to the Muslim religion here than you would ever see published in say Commentary, the magazine which is the darling of the neoconservative movement.

In conclusion whilst the main blog posts here are excellent,the comments boxes, which in some ways are an extension of the blog post are simply awful. Yes, there are also some excellent people in the comments boxes but sadly you may have to wade through dribble to locate these comments.

I would be in favour of something I have never seen done - 2 sets of comments boxes for each post - the first one being for approved and registered commentators who would be happy to loosely agree with a set of political beliefs something possibly like the Euston Manifesto. This comments box would also have some commentators who are known dissenters, and their posts would be easily identifiable as dissenters. The second comments box for everyone else.

This is a far-fetched idea, but I think HP is an excellent blog whose quality is called into question by the comments boxes.

[Nicky Wire] has a bit of an ego

As in, Fergal Sharkey has a bit of a chin.

I’d be in favour of two sets of comments boxes too - one labelled “people who agree with me” and the other labelled “lunatics.”

it has been that small clique of posters in the comments boxes who continually express, what are in my opinion, anti-Muslim and bigoted views.

I don’t think it has been a “small clique”. I think it has been a systematic attempt to take over the comments boxes and in some instanced to attempt to tell us that we cannot post links to things the bigots don’t approve of.

The problem is, with so many people round here influenced, for whatever curious reason, by Trotskyism (out of all proportion with those who have drunk this poison outwith these doors), too many people would want a “neither dissent nor fail to dissent” box.

I don’t think anonymity detracts significantly, to be honest. Anonymity means that people who risk being politically victimised at work - for example - can speak honestly. It lets people tell very personal facts about their private lives, again, without fear of exposure.

Even when the ’secret identities’ of bloggers have been publicised, it hasn’t added very much, if anything, to the content of their arguments. That’s because most bloggers are only famous, or notable, for blogging.

On the Muslim thing: I think that there is a legitimate debate to be had about the links between the moral lesson of the Quran, and takfiri jihadism. They are linked. The reasonable argument is whetehr the Quran inevitably leads to jihadism and an attempt to create an Islamic state. Some bigots and some Islamists take the view that it does. I take the contrary view, for reasons I’ve explained at length.

However, for a long time, the argument proceeded in a hopeless way, with bigots painting Muslims as effectively a fifth column in this country, and those arguing against them pretty much at a loss as to what to say in response, other than “ooh that sounds a bit racist”.

In the years since this blog has started, we’ve ended up with a much clearer picture of the relatively low level of activity by marginal Islamist groups, their promotion by equally marginal far Left groups. The diversity of British Islam has also become far clearer. Groups like MECO, MFSD and Quilliam have become as prominent as the MAB/HuT/MCB lot.

These arguments had to be had. You couldn’t duck them. Even if you dodged them on blogs, you’d hear them from your friends and acquaintances.

I don’t think that any of us would have been in a position to win these debates, let alone shape the public arguments, if we’d attempted to constrain it artificially.

Well there are those of us who would never have arrived here at all if it hadn’t been for Trotskyism (which you may consider a blessing considering the quality of contributor under discussion!)

I see it as more of a damning indictment of our school system of course but there is no necessity for the Trotskyist “influence” to have been a positive one (what it did for me was give a great insight into how the minds of disconnected middle-class socialists work for instance.)

However (and this won’t be popular) I do have quite a lot of residual affection for Tony Cliff and his wife who seemed to me (from the little I understood as a teenager) both fair and enthusiastic and also dedicated to a cause (even though the cause was hopeless and the party members thrown up by far better schools than I went to were faintly ridiculous creatures.)

Mikey,

I agree there are soem bigots here (but I would suggest you look at some other blgos if you think this is anything out of the ordinary). On the other hand, I do think that, all in all, we do a pretty good job of confronting bigots…and I mean bigots, not people who are, as you put it, merely “hostile to the Muslim religion”. Hostility to Islam is, I agree, often used as a cloak to diguise hatred of Muslims just for being Muslim, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Argued coherently and sincerely, hostility to Islam should be no more off-limits than hostility to the local Rotary Club.

You cited ‘Commentary’ and it probably is the case that there are no comparable conversations happening in the MSM, but I’m doubtful this is the positive distinguishing characteristic you seem to think it is.

it has been that small clique of posters in the comments boxes who continually express, what are in my opinion, anti-Muslim and bigoted views. I am not in a position to comment on other blogs and I accept there are no doubt others a lot worse, but I see have seen more hostility to the Muslim religion here than you would ever see published in say Commentary

Really?

Here’s Sam Harris, noted author and celebrated atheist, “talking” like a vulgar denizen of HP comboxes and expressing his *islamophobia*. Please read.

Perhaps Commentary is experiencing the same chill.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

David T: “The sort of people who follow Radiohead and the Smiths, and other bands like that, have a very personal relationship with their band. They want to share the band with their closest of friends, but not with the hoi polloi.”

Why would anyone want a ‘personal relationship’ with a band? Especially when they’re in their 40s? And as for the hoi polloi, aren’t Radiohead one of the biggest bands on the planet? Presumably that means there must be a fair bit of the hoi polloi among their millions of fans?

David T: “My sister bought me the 45 inch of Honolulu Baby and The Lonesome Pine for my birthday.”

You mean the 7 inch, 45rpm presumably? Brilliant, brilliant record though - Ollie had a lovely voice (best heard on the gorgeous Lazy Moon in their Pardon Us feature).

The personal relationship you form with a band in your late teens and early 20s - that window when music ‘means’ something to you as it never will again - is difficult to explain. It isn’t actually about having a personal relationship with particular musicians: it is more about focusing your own sense of self, coalescing it around certain themes. Music helps to do that, for some reason. Perhaps that’s what it is for.

The size of the band doesn’t really matter. It is the perception that it is you, and the band, and the other band’s fans: against the rest of the uncaring unfeeling world. Unless the band is The Beatles, you can still pull off the feeling of exclusivity about your relationship.

Surely you remember this?

“The size of the band doesn’t really matter. It is the perception that it is you, and the band, and the other band’s fans: against the rest of the uncaring unfeeling world…. Surely you remember this?”

No, I don’t. You speak of it as if it’s a good thing.

The thing is, I’m utterly obsessed with - and have been ever since I was a very small kid - music. As was my dad. It’s why I can’t, and couldn’t, align myself to one particular type of music or one band or one subculture. In fact, I find that attitude quite suspicious. It explains, though, why I’m surrounded by blokes the same age as me (40) who, while also refusing to give up the allegiances they had while adolescents, can’t bring themselves to actually engage with what’s going on now. A bit sad really.

mikey: not fair to derail this music thread, but as you raised it:
In which box would you put Hirsi Ali?
From this latest comparison of Irshid Manji and Hirsi Ali:
Ms. Hirsi Ali is an avowed atheist whose criticisms can be seen as attacks not only on radical Islamism but on the religion of Islam over all. George W. Bush was wrong, she says, when he announced that Islam was being held hostage by a terrorist minority: “Islam is being held hostage by itself.” About the 9/11 attacks, she declared: “This is Islam,” and “not just Islam, this was the core of Islam.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/weekinreview/27gewen.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

Wait, don’t respond- rather:speaking of cheesy white jazz musos- my alltime favourite record:
The Dissection and Reconstruction of Music From the Past as Performed by the Inmates of Lalo Schifrin’s Demented Ensemble as a Tribute to the Memory of the Marquis de Sade.”
There is one track that I want played at my funeral, it is so jaunty and full of exiliration and fun. Subject for another post: what music folks would like at their funeral?

David,

The reason I commented on anonymity is not to speak against it, as is obvious, I use an anonymous name as well, but because it shows that blogs written by people who are not known in public life can be successful with a blog. It does not need to be a blog from a famous name or organisation to garner popularity. This blog is a case in point.

I am not adverse to a debate on the Koran and Jihadism - but there are some commentators who wish to bring the matter into every post that has anything to do with Muslims, thereby condemning all followers of the Muslim religion including, no doubt, hundreds of millions who would never dream of getting involved in a violent Jihad but still are proud to refer to themselves as Muslims.

Comments about the Prophet Mohammed being a pedophile that I have seen in these boxes have been written for what purpose? In my opinion, comments of that type ruin this blog. They would not be published in the mainstream media of reputable quality and that is not because of fear of attack by Muslims but because the intent of such posts is obvious to all. Harry’s Place does not tend to moderate such comments and I doubt the main posters would have time to and that excludes the freedom of speech argument. In my personal opinion, whilst I support freedom of speech, it does not mean that I would force someone to publish views that they do not agree with. Consequently, I would prefer that Harry’s Place did not publish such comments. It is a shame that this cannot be expected due to work and other commitments by the main posters, but the fact that it is not done drives me away from these comments boxes. I do not want to associate myself with people who hold such views.

That does not mean to say that I completely ignore the comments boxes but as I often do not find them pleasant reading, I do not comment as much as I possibly would.

To conclude, I am a huge fan of this blog - but I feel it is a shame that if I mention this blog to someone who does not know about it, I feel the need to tell them to ignore the rubbish in the comments boxes and just read the main posts.

Are the following equivalent?

“Argued coherently and sincerely, hostility to Islam should be no more off-limits than hostility to the local Rotary Club.”

“Argued coherently and sincerely, hostility to Christianity should be no more off-limits than hostility to the local Rotary Club.”

“Argued coherently and sincerely, hostility to Judaism should be no more off-limits than hostility to the local Rotary Club.”

Maybe they are, but I’m not sure it feels the same to say them, knowing what we know about the history of anti-semitism.

Subject for another post: what music folks would like at their funeral?

Going Underground by the Jam?

Oh go on Ami do the post (but please don’t depress us on Dress Down Friday!)

Ami,

I am not adverse to the writings of Ayaan Hirsi Ali nor the writings of Irshad Manji that that article that you linked to also discusses. In context such discussions I feel are fine and legitimate, but the approach some commentators in these comments box take is, for me at least, something very distasteful indeed.

I don’t think my musical taste fossilised at the age of 23. About once a year, I come across a band I utterly fall in love with, and listen to again and again

But the Smiths were my first love: and that’s special.

That was a joke dirigible.

Thom Yorke makes me sick? see

He used “airbag” in that misery compendium OK Computer

So I changed it to “sickbag”

Clear?

The reasonable argument is whetehr the Quran inevitably leads to jihadism and an attempt to create an Islamic state.

Some bigots and some Islamists take the view that it does. I take the contrary view, for reasons I’ve explained at length.

So those opposed to your contrary view must all be bigots and/or islamists?

Either you’re with me or you’re against me?

The diversity of British Islam has also become far clearer. Groups like MECO, MFSD and Quilliam have become as prominent as the MAB/HuT/MCB lot.

“Diversity” of methods only. The aims remain the same.

Quilliam was quite a nasty and intolerant character, an inveterate hater of Britian who spent a great deal of time expressing poisonous and treasonous views.

So is he the holy graal of moderation that moderate British Muslims should aspire to emulate?

Would the establishment of a Geobbels Foundation allay you fears of nazism, and if not, would your rejection of its tenets, its aims and its ‘policy objectives’…namely the establishment of a moderate National Socialism… mark you as a bigot?

‘Mikey’ is Colin Greenwood, and I claim my five pounds.

Mikey

‘In my personal opinion, whilst I support freedom of speech, it does not mean that I would force someone to publish views that they do not agree with.

Consequently, I would prefer that Harry’s Place did not publish such comments.

It is a shame that this cannot be expected due to work and other commitments by the main posters, but the fact that it is not done drives me away from these comments boxes.

I do not want to associate myself with people who hold such views.

That does not mean to say that I completely ignore the comments boxes but as I often do not find them pleasant reading, I do not comment as much as I possibly would.’

I am genuinely sorry that you don’t find the comments boxes pleasant reading but you are perfectly free to read only the main articles (as you say you mostly do).

That you would prefer not to have to read things that you disaprove of is reasonable and you retain that choice.

That you would prefer HP to operate a continuous moderation by censorship (of it appears comments about Islam that you personally find offensive) is quite another matter.

Could you explain how your preference in any way supports the principle of free speech in practice?

—

David T

May I ask if the HP strapline

‘Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear’

Has gone for good? Is this a policy decision?

I ask because it was that strapline that drew me here more than anything. Not because it was a comfy principle that was mere rhetoric but because that has always been the guiding principle of HP ers in practice.

I say that as someone who has on occasion been whacked across the knuckles with that phrase when other commenters have felt that my online behaviour has questioned that principle.

I welcomed the codeification that seemed to be Article one of the HP bill of Rights, and I miss it.

(not to be Churlish about the new design but I am never quite sure if I have arrived at HP as quite a lot of political blogs look like this)

Mettaculture.

Free speech, as I understand it as a simple concept works as follows in practice. Can you go into the square in the capital of a country and denounce the government. In the UK you can - in fact, Speakers Corner near Marble Arch in the heart of London is designed exactly for that.

In any society there tends to be limits to free speech - an example often used is that you cannot go into a crowded cinema and shout “Fire!” (unless of course there really is a fire or good grounds to suspect there is). This seems quite a sensible restriction. Added to that, in the UK at least are the rules concerning incitement. Some purists may have a problem with the incitement rules, but I can still be in favour of free speech but not for incitement or such things as shouting “Fire!” unnecessarily in a crowded place.

Even if I took away these restrictions and said I was completely in favour of freedom of speech - it does not mean to say that I have to provide platform for it. If, in a pure free speech society, the BNP or a different far-right organisation wanted to espouse racist nonsense and incite people to kill or beat up ethnic minorities they would be allowed to - but that does not mean to say that The Times would have to publish letters from the far-right expressing that view. If we live in a free society - then the owners of Harry’s Place should be free to publish what they want - it does not impinge on the free speech of the BNP - they can publish what they want on their own blog or newspaper or outlet.

I trust I have made myself clear.

I do not want to associate myself with people who hold such views.

I don’t mean to pick a fight for the sake of it, Mikey, but in what sense are you associated with such views just by commenting on the same blog? If their’s was the dominant narrative, then you would have a point. It’s why none of us can be found commenting on LGF. But theirs is very far from the dominant narrative here. HP may be labelled “a haven for Islamaphobes” every other Tuesday by the usual suspects, but that doesn’t make it so. Having your quota of bigots and looney tunes is the prcie you pay for having an open comments policy. Not being able to confront every racist and delete every vile comment is the price we pay for enjoying relative popularity, although I maintain the more reactionary commenters are confronted by the authors whenever and wherever we see their filth.

If you like HP and don’t want to see it go to the dogs, then people ike you need to comment more, not less.

Ven: “This is one of the loathsome things about the misguided age ushered in by the radicals of 1968 - - bloated and preposterous excuses for philistinism”.

I make no excuses. I enjoy jazz now. That’s probably where it all went wrong.

As for being able to appreciate Berman and loathe Bush simultaneously, I expect most of Berman’s readership are that way inclined. I just always made assumptions about Thom Yorke’s politics based on that title. A preoccupation with a three-year old US election result on the part of a UK band, and publicly denying Bush’s democratic legitimacy at the outset of the Iraq war, does suggest certain political affiliations. That said, it was only an assumption. I’ll go double or nothing on that 10 shekels, and bet that Thom Yorke reckons it was all about oil and wants the troops out now.

Mikey,

I’ve deleted a number of what I considered flat-out bigoted anti-Muslim comments here over the years. I’m sure there are others I should have deleted, but didn’t.

But what should I do when commenters denounce Islam as a religion? I think they have a right to do so, just as they have a right to denounce Judaism and Christianity– there are, after all, genuinely disturbing elements in all three religions.

Sometimes, however, it’s difficult to tell whether a comment is simply anti-Islam-as-a-religion, or a bigoted attack on Muslims, or some combination of both.

It’s not an easy matter.

Metta

The strap-line is still there, but it is in the picture - which I guess you can’t see. Are you reading on a blackberry?

I trust I have made myself clear.

Well yes though your position seems to be one of ‘freedom of speech zoning’ and no platform for views that you find offensive.

I don’t happen to agree.

I accept that some extreme forms of speech that directly incite unlawful violence should be publically prohibited regardless of venue.

I consider that some forms of malicious falsehood disseminated to cause harm, and resulting in harm, should be opposable (this is a difficult area and I am not in favour of criminal or disproportionate civil speech restriction measures) and that retraction of the statement or right of reply are legitimate approaches to this damaging speech.

Pesonal abuse is always offensive and when gratuitous arguably may be removed in so far as it is seperable from an argued position. I find it annoying but am not particularly bothered by profane insults that make no truth claim but are merely to insult or ridicule.

I do not accept that offensive speech, no matter how horribly offensive, that forms part of a political argument on a political ’speakeasy’ blog, should be censored or prohibited or removed, merely because it causes offense.

I would be unlikely to comment on any blog where comments were manicured to conform to a house style of acceptable commentary (like CIF).

The politesse of the Salon is fine for those who like that kind of thing I suppose.

It is not that I disagree with you that some people’s hostility to all manifestations of Islam crosses a line into insulting or bigoted hyperbole its just that I can’t accept that the line is as easily drawn as you seem to think or that attempting to restrict this offense will not disproportionately restrict legitimate free political speech.

The principle reason that I started commenting on HP was because it was a left of centre blog that criticised the ideology of Islamism and the uncritical acceptance by major sections of the left, that any criticism of a totalitarian theo-politics was racist.

I have often been accused of Islamophobia by non-muslim leftists who are concerned about islamophobia as a form of racism but are fairly ignorant of islam and Islamism.

I have never been accused of Islamophobia by a practicing, muslim .

Islamists have different arguments , insults and threats for those who oppose their ideology and know something about it (it is actually easier to do this as a non-muslim charges of takfir/apostasy don’t work).

Most of my posts on Islamism at CIF have been deleted in their entirety as ‘offensive’ or for no reason given at all (I no longer comment there)

I have often been insulted at HP by the more vehemently anti-slamic types when I refuse to engage in a clash of civilisations denunciation of Islam.

Sometimes I find these comments bigoted and distasteful but
If those commenters were denied a platform then I would not return

BTW I don’t know if you have been to Speakers Corner in the last ten years?

One encounters few articulate or rational political criticisms of the Government.

It is overwhelmingly given over to extreme fundamentalist Christianity and jihadi style Islamism.

It seems more of a ‘free speech’ zoo or licensed ‘breathing space’ more akin to the ’stage managed’ criticism that DaveM desribes for Syria, than a vital contribution to political dialogue in a liberal democracy.

“Argued coherently and sincerely, hostility to Judaism should be no more off-limits than hostility to the local Rotary Club.”

The problem with Judaism is the love. Or lack of. Unlike Christianity and its message of the redemptive power of love, Judaism remains wedded to the violence of an eye for an eye. It is a religion of revenge.

Love thine enemy like thy self, people.

Love thine enemy like thy self, people.

Sorry, Reverend. Wouldn’t be prudent.

Brownie, Gene and Mettaculture

Thank you for your comments. I accept it is not an easy thing and I also accept where to draw the line, if a line is to be drawn, is a difficult one, You can have problems determining what is and what is not acceptable and you can have people being deleted for reasons that are not reasonable - I believe CiF is a forum where such problems do exist.

I accept Brownie’s point that realistically, if I feel the way I do, that I should comment more, not less. He is of course right on this but the reason I do not is as follows. I guess we are all doing this in our spare time or in breaks from work for some kind of enjoyment. I like an argument as much as the next guy (or gal - and sadly less gals than are ideal on here) but I do not enjoy debating with bigots. In fact, I feel that even responding to them gives them some credibility that they do not deserve.

As some people here are aware, I enjoy meeting extremists. I find them fascinating and go out of my way to meet them, but I do not take them seriously. In the near future, maybe tomorrow I shall do a guest post about Gilad Atzmon and his Jewish anti-Zionist opponents but you will see that I simply ridicule them because that is what they are deserved of.

I would have much less of a problem with the comments boxes on this site if the bigoted posters and posts were a distinct minority and were always “shouted down” by other commentators but sadly they are not. For me it is tiresome and I hence spend my free Internet arguing time on a different forum that does not suffer the same problem.

This blog I believe has huge potential. It already is a popular blog but it could really be a world class blog if it could attract more decent writers (irrespective of their view point) and ideally included more woman and given the subjects that attract a lot of interest in this blog - more Muslims.

I subscribe to the printed journals of both Dissent and Commentary. The former is left-wing and the latter is associated with the neoconservative movement. I enjoy reading good political articles from many perspectives and I have to say the letters pages of Commentary are simply superb. It is not that I want only left-wing views to appear here, but I do not like to see bigoted views.

Norman Podhoretz has been described as the conductor of the neoconservative orchestra. His recent book World War IV is subtitled The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism and he has published two articles in Commentary in the last year arguing for Iran to be bombed - but even with him - I do not see bigoted argument. His case may be right wing, but I do not see it as racist or, if you like, Islamophobic.

Yes, bring on a neoconservative writer to Harry’s Place- also bring on a poster from something like the Stop the War Coalition (if they would agree to post) - maybe both as guest posters. Diversity is key and it could all be argued in the comments boxes.

I do not feel it is the main posters here who are sending this blog down the tubes but the comments boxes makes this site unappealing.

I apologise for the rant and I accept that Gene and Brownie have done an awful lot over the years to make Harry’s Place such a great blog. I hope my comments are taken in the spirit intended - constructive criticism.

Hey Mikey,

Nothing to aplogise for. Especially as in between comments, the Reverend Lovejoy has popped up. As if to prove your point.

Yes, bring on a neoconservative writer to Harry’s Place- also bring on a poster from something like the Stop the War Coalition (if they would agree to post) - maybe both as guest posters. Diversity is key and it could all be argued in the comments boxes.

I like the idea. I think we tried this before. In both cases, he was called “Johann Hari”.

My problem is I spend too much time in the comments boxes and not enough posting actual blogs. One the rare occasion I feel I have something I’d like to get off my chest, I wake up in the morning to see DavidT or Brett or whoever has already written about it. or in Graham’s case, he’s had a Fillipino paid 3 pounds an hour ghost write it for him.

Pay them three quid an hour? You must be joking - its write me 2 pages on Ken Livingstone or detention all week….

Mmmm jazz… Just yesterday someone returned my long lost CD of Herbie Mann (now that they don’t need CDs anymore these days)

I can’t abide jazz. If I wanted to pay someone to twiddle pointlessly in front of me, I’d go to a strip club. At least I’d know when to applaud - they appear to do this entirely at random in jazz clubs. Perhaps it’s to alleviate the boredom.

Mrs Trellis is having trouble with her italics, it seems.

see?

Your scorn strengthens our fandom.

Admit it, David. You’re a closet Chomskyite… ;)

Sorry I missed the party.

For some old school ruffian rituals, I recommend this back issue of Word.

I’m so sorry about your italics, Mrs Trellis.

You should know, however, that the use of blockquote tags (instead of “i” ones) results in an absolutely

delightful

appearance on the new set-up . (At least, if you use it properly - I suspect for one word in the middle of a paragraph, as here, it will just look silly. But you get the idea)

Hello my friends :)
;)

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