Harry’s Place

I think it’s probably the principal speaker, not the principle speaker.

Andy Newman says:

Well the way this blog works is that Derek has complete editorial control over his own articles.

Comment by Andy Newman — 31 August, 2008 @ 3:09 pm

Which is fair enough.

“I think it’s probably the principal speaker, not the principle speaker.

Phew. I though he spoke to their principles. Error noted and corrected.

Andy’s position is correct.

I agree, I think the image is goes too far. There is a good point to be made about the dangers to democracy represented by govt-corporate nexus. This can be made, however, without unfairly associating the Nazi Party with the Labour Party.

What is a nationalisation policy if it isn’t the merger of State and Corporate power? Socialists are such hypocrites.

Whatever one’s views on nationalisation, it is not necessarily a fascist or proto-fascist mechanism because it rather depends on the complexion of the government that nationalises them.

Moreover, it’s about the relationship between private corporations and government. Pinochet set up something close to fascist state while privatising virtually everything that moved under the esteemed advice of the University of Chicago.

What is the govt-corporate nexus?

This can be made, however, without unfairly associating the Nazi Party with the Labour Party.

If you meant it this way round, then that was quite funny, benji.

I have quite a few friends who are Greens, so it pains me to see a sign of the party’s decent into far-left farce.

Why should you be surprised? Greens have always been Watermelons - Green on the outside and Red on the side.

Every single Green Party Member should be forcibly dropped off in the midst of the Amazonian Jungle without any supplies or clothing. Let’s see how long the fuckers last. Perhaps we could televise it as well.

“The merger of state and corporate power.”

Sounds like socialism to me.

and exactly how fascist is Sky on scale of 1 to 10?

Although having said that UKTV History does have an unhealthy obsession with WW2.

It doesn’t surprise me either. Just take a look at the people in the various Green coalitions up and down the country - mostly far-left twats who think the Green banner will give them some kind of legitimacy and, more worryingly, a relatively easy ride to positions of ‘power’.

But I was heartened to read that one of the more positive outcomes of the ‘credit crunch’ is that we’ll be hearing a lot less about green issues as people realise that there are other things to worry about. Not that I’m totally opposed to green issues - just to the highly irritating middle-class fanaticism we’ve had to endure over the past couple of years.

Wall practices zazen and is influenced by spirituality through “pursuing a pagan appreciation of the living world in a variety of ways”[2]. In Babylon and Beyond, he argues that Zen acts as a guard against utopianism as it “is based on being in the world rather than escaping from it”. He also links anti-capitalism and Zen, stating, based on the work of anthropologist and economist Marshall Sahlins, that “Zen minimises need and provides an alternative road to affluence”[5].

He bills himself as a “left wing maverick” apparently.
He teaches at a Public school.

These twits really don’t understand what corporatism is. They just hear ‘corporate’ and think of Sky, Esso, Maccy D’s, Pizza Hut and all the other evil capitalist corporations which are, like, bad.

Labelling anyone who disagrees with you a Nazi/fascist is always a sign of desparation in my book. Or mentalism. Shame on this Green!

“He teaches at a Public school.”

No he doesn’t:

“Dr. Wall teaches political economy at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and is head of social science at a sixth form college. ”

“Wall practices zazen and is influenced by spirituality through “pursuing a pagan appreciation of the living world in a variety of ways””

Translation: he smokes weed.

Oh sorry - I was reading his biog on the Green Party site. You got it from Wiki which, as you say, does make it clear that he teaches at a “private 6th form college”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Wall

These institutions are usually known as “crammers”. They’re for people who have failed their A Levels.

I think that Neil Clark teaches, or taught, at one of these.

I’ve just seen that he teaches at a private school?! What a prize twat. No doubt it is important to talk about eco-socialism and radical Zen to the next generation of the revolutionary Green vanguard; the upper-middle-classes. All his fervour would be wasted in a bog standard comp. What an arse.

Wall sounds like a right cunt doesn’t he? Looks like one too:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42382000/jpg/_42382553_derekwall2_203.jpg

On the Socialist Unity thread Wall comes under some criticism for using the swastika image. However, one poster jumps to his defence:

“I think the swastika is apt. New Labour have ethnically cleansed and legislated the English out of existence.
One of the leaves should have BBC on it too.

Comment by tally — 30 August, 2008″

Lolz. Could a Green-BNP coalition be on the cards?

Give over with the personal stuff David T and others.

Why do you chaps personally castigate your political enemies, including digging up stuff about their place of work etc? I think it is unbecoming.

There is nothing wrong with teaching at a 6th form college, and you have no evidence that the chap smokes weed. Can’t you just disagree with folk without the unnecessarily unpleasant stuff?

The Nazi comparison is unfair. For all of the evil of the Nazi party, they did manage to build a strong economy and a strong national identity. In that respect, New Labour are like the opposite of the Nazis.

Benji

You might have a point except:

- this information is on the Green Party’s website: where it leaves out the crucial information that this is a private sixth form college

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/individual/117

Now, I have no problem with private education. However, many people on the Left do. That explains why it has been left off his Green Party resume. And this is what makes it interesting and relevant.

- I think that if you claim to follow the ancient art of holistic zizou buddhist yogic flying, you’re inviting people to take the piss.

Benji - if you make a big deal about what a radical socialist you are and you simultaneously teach a private school you are, IMHO, a hypocritical arse and this needs to be conveyed to the public as widely as possible.

Perhaps if he hadn’t insinuated that I am a Nazi because I am a Labour Party member then I would be a bit more forgiving.

“Perhaps if he hadn’t insinuated that I am a Nazi because I am a Labour Party member then I would be a bit more forgiving.”

Exactly. And really, Benjamin, of all the people you choose to defend, you choose this clown? Says a lot really.

Its not cheap either,Duff Miller

http://www.duffmiller.com/doclib/Fees_2008-2009.pdf

£4k for an A level resit.

These places are often full of thick rich kids and the disinterested offspring of drug dealers.(not to generalise or anything)

Being ex Duff Miller sounds like a beer sponsorship joke from the Simpsons.

This is a bit like the New Statesman depicting Blair as Stalin a couple of years ago. Depicting democratic politicians as totalitarians is the flip side of the coin to making excuses for real totalitarians. Both reflect an ambivalent attitude to democracy, not too surprising in members of small groups that have very little electoral support.

“Dr. Wall teaches political economy at Goldsmiths College, University of London”.

Never seen him there. Don’t know anyone who has.

He may have taught a course for the Politics department once, but no idea how long ago that was.

And really, Benjamin, of all the people you choose to defend, you choose this clown?

I am not defending Wall, per se. I agree that the cartoon was OTT. If you want to attack his political positions and ideas, that’s fine. I was simply objecting to what I see as the personal stuff.

David T may have little respect for Buddhism and East Asian traditions and refer to them as pot smokers, but that aspect of Wall’s life is not relevant, and there is no need to be so rude about such practices.

Benji.
If you bill yourself as a left wing maverick,don’t teach in a rich kids crammer.
If you teach in a rich kids crammer don’t bill yourself as a left wing maverick.
Got that?

But smoking the wacky backy makes you go insane in the membrane!

Just say no, Benji!

“David T may have little respect for Buddhism and East Asian traditions and refer to them as pot smokers, but that aspect of Wall’s life is not relevant, and there is no need to be so rude about such practices.”

Ah, so what you’re really saying is that because you too subscribe to ‘East Asian’ drivel, it should somehow be off limits when it comes to ridicule? Nah, sorry. In fact, I think there’s every need to be rude about such practices - especially when it’s practiced by such an utter twat as Wall.

I think that if you claim to follow the ancient art of holistic zizou buddhist yogic flying, you’re inviting people to take the piss.

Ah, yes, very Sun newspaper.

Tell me, David, how much do you know about Zazen?

“but that aspect of Wall’s life is not relevant”

It may well not be, in which case the Green Party were foolish to put it on his website page:

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/individual/117

Because, obviously, I’m going to take the piss.

You can all take the piss out of holistic zizou buddhist yogic flying as much as you like, but I’m 300 years old, even if I have started to resemble a character from Deep Space 9.

Ah, so what you’re really saying is that because you too subscribe to ‘East Asian’ drivel, it should somehow be off limits when it comes to ridicule?

Actually, I don’t. But you know what, I know people that do, and I respect them. It’s not necessarily drivel, its just something that folk do for themselves and that’s okay.

How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It’s really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here’s the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life

D.Wall

Duff Miller charges £50 per hour for private tuition.Thus leaving the students parents consuming less.

Its a Green College

I have seen this Mussolini quote discussed elsewhere. I don’t know enough Italian to judge, and in any case I seem to have misplaced my Italian edition of Benito’s best quotations, but the argument was that the Italian word translated as “corporate” looks like “corporate” but actually referred at the time to a kind of labor/management committee. If that is true, then the last phrase might better be translated as “merger of State and soviet power.”

“Actually, I don’t. But you know what, I know people that do, and I respect them.”

What do you mean you respect them? Why? For their silly little beliefs and practices? Why would you ‘respect’ someone for that? It’s ridiculous.

I can’t believe Benji is actually arguing it’s not on to take the piss out of yogic flyers.

Who is it OK to mock, Benji?

http://www.permanentpeace.org/technology/yogic_flying.html

I am sure the Green Party is aware that there are people like you who will take this piss out of these things. However, there is nothing ‘foolish’ about putting folk’s spiritual beliefs on their websites. It seems to me straightforward and honest.

pursuing a pagan appreciation of the living world

Can we take the piss out of Pagans pleas Benji?

Especially lonely pagans?

http://www.paganpartners.co.uk/

Proponents of Yogic Flying claim that world peace and many other social and environmental benefits can be generated by having at least seven thousand yogic flyers around the world hopping at the same time.

Nothing to laugh at here!

Stop laughing!

However, there is nothing ‘foolish’ about putting folk’s spiritual beliefs on their websites. It seems to me straightforward and honest.

As straightforward and honest as omitting that you work in an expensive crammer?

Come on, Benjamin - out with it. Why has this particular thing about taking the piss out of, uck, ’spiritual beliefs’ bothered you so much? Where’s the usual dismissive ‘come on chaps’ bonhomie that you’re so famous for?

I can’t believe Benji is actually arguing it’s not on to take the piss out of yogic flyers.

I used to think that. But its not really about flying, anyway. I am not a Buddhist, but I have some respect for Buddhism. I know a few folk who are Buddhists, and I have visited Buddhist countries. So with familiarity and understanding comes some respect. There you go - different strokes for different folks.

I just think you taking the piss out of Buddhism just sounds too much like a cliched western thing. I do actually live in Asia, so one sees things from different angles.

David T,

a crammers, you say? you mean that Derek Wall teaches the thicko Middle Class kids?

I almost feel sorry for him!!

I am also aware of Buddhists’ great suffering under communism in China and Cambodia, so that’s why I am a bit defensive about it.

I have visited Buddhist countries

Just a quick hop there and back?

Imagine how many SUV’s he has to peddle past to reach his ecosocialist library.

I am also aware of Buddhists’ great suffering under communism in China and Cambodia, so that’s why I am a bit defensive about it.

Yeah, so don’t laugh at people who think that suffering in the world can be stopped by bouncing around on a mattress.

According to Brooks Duncan in New Internationalist magazine:

“The prosecution will say that the Khmer Rouge destroyed Khmer religion and culture by attacking Buddhism and monks. That will be easy to prove: the murders are clear and punishable crimes. But the Khmer Rouge leaders on trial could raise troubling questions about whether Buddhism in Cambodia is really Khmer. They will likely note that Buddhism was an Indian religion that arrived well after other religions. They will ask whether this foreign religion, and the monks promoting it, were protecting Khmer culture or making the Khmer more passive, obedient and vulnerable. They will say that they were cleansing the country of an outside religion that symbolized and presided over 600 years of the country’s decline… The question for the trial is whether the criminalization of attacks on Buddhism as a religion are designed to protect the Khmer or are designed by foreign prosecutors - and the Khmer élite aligned with them - to criminalize attempts at independence and reform.”

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/08/please-dont-let-them-be-misunderstood.html

“I am also aware of Buddhists’ great suffering under communism in China and Cambodia, so that’s why I am a bit defensive about it.”

Yes, Benjamin - this bleeding empathetic heart of yours is certainly consistent with just about everything else you’ve ever said on HP.

Yeah, so don’t laugh at people who think that suffering in the world can be stopped by bouncing around on a mattress.

Don’t knock it - its what I always tell my girlfriend.

didn’t the Yogic Flyers dissolved themselves and start deep entryism into the Green Party? a sort of bouncing off of the wall grouping, probably very popular within the Greens?

Derek Wall has to put up with a lot of weirdo rubbish, he needs our support, Derek was there for HP in their time of need

http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2008/08/solidarity-with-harrys-place.html

I do actually live in Asia, so one sees things from different angles.

Different how? Gary Glitter different?

Just a quick hop there and back?

Yes, I do recommend the Met, if you are ever in Bangkok.

Certainly not Stu.

When the yogic flyers of the Natural Law party stood all those candidates in the 1997 General Election, it was their attempt to appeal to the floating voters…

I have had a go at Derek, over various things.

However, he’s “wrong” rather than “wicked”.

But you must be allowed to take the piss out of politicians, surely? Come on!

Boom boom!

David Icke was certainly the most eccentric of the Green Party speakers so far. I do remember a visit by him to a Sheffield school in 1989, part of a televised debate. Very articulate speaker in all fairness, still partly the cheesy sweater wearing snooker presenter.

The comprison was with Mussolini, corporatism and Labour, not with the Nazis. This was a favourite trope of the ultra-free market right at one point. Indeed in political science a range of people talked about a (non-fascist) corporatism in the UK, agreements between unions, employers and the government (tripartism) being labelled this.

It was a pretty strained analogy. UK collectvie bargaining never involved the kind of binding agreements the model required, as David Marquand, who rather liked the idea in his er changeable political history, used to point out. Nor was there even more than the ghost of tripartism after Thatcher (I think some committees lingered on a while, and ACAS still exists, just.) In any case I fail to see how new Labour are corporatist, except in that the like big corporations and binzniz corporate types and want the poor to do as they’re told.

Derek Wall’s problems don’t only lie with his Zen Italism (the name he gives for one - he has many - of his new age fads in Babylon and Beyond). Or the fact that the largest Green Party in local government, in Norwich, is known countrywide only for its ban on foie gras in local chippies. It is that his mixture of reasonable, well-argued, market socialism, with co-operatives and ecological proposals, is based on a party which is a rainbow coalition whose majority is not in the slightest socialist or social democratic (their programme makes that clear). It resembles a ‘post-materialist’ (there I’ve said it, like the posts..) Liberal Democrats - with decent types mixing with harmless cranks and rank power-hungry operators.

Benjamin: “I am also aware of Buddhists’ great suffering under communism in China and Cambodia, so that’s why I am a bit defensive about it.”

Bollocks. There is no “great suffering” of Buddhism in modern China.

the freedom of religious expression is guaranteed by law, there are some 100 million religious beleivers, 20000 temples and 200000 Buddhist monks and nuns in the Peoples republic (ORC).

In 2006 the PRC hosted the World Buddhist Forum in Hangzhou, with international delegates from throughout the Buddhist world, that was opened by a CCP government minister who praised the role of Buddhism in promoting a harmonious sociaety and contributing to world peace.

some repression.

It would be fair to criticise the forced campiagns for secularisation during the Cultural Revolution, but even there religious orders suffered less than many other sections of society.

“Tell me, David, how much do you know about Zazen?”
As much as Wall knows about ZaNewLabour, Benji?

Apparently Dr Derek the left wing maverick is head of Social Science dept at the public school.

His Guardian Cif profile describes him as

Dr Derek Wall is the Green Party Principal Speaker. He teaches economics at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His most recent book Babylon and Beyond (Pluto 2005) looks at alternatives to capitalism and corporate
globalisation. He writes a food column ethical eats for Red Pepper

It does seem he’s embarrassed about combining his campaign against capitalism with working in a rich kids crammer.

Just confirming what I’ve read in some other comments - the translation of that Mussolini quote is misleading. “Corporazioni”, in Italian, does not mean “corporations” in the English sense - the best translation you might find is akin to “guilds”. A “corporate state” is not what the English word seems to describe but one in which the Parliament had been replaced by the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni, a non-elected chamber of representatives whose member were nominated by the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo (the Fascist Party’s Central Committee), by the Consiglio Nazionale del Partito Fascista (a sort of permanent party conference made up of all party-nominated local authorities, party elders and Fascist university professors) and by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Corporazioni, a national organism composed of representatives from the Fascist trade unions and entrepreneurs’ unions, by the Labor ministry and by the largest “opere” - what you’d call quangos, i guess. So it’s got really little to do with what in English you’d call “corporations”

This idea that you have a duty to be respectful of other people’s superstitions just because you like and respect the people who hold them is very silly. I know a woman, very nice and generally sensible and intelligent, who thinks her astrologer can foretell the future. I don’t feel a duty of respct towards astrology because of that. Same goes for Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and all the other collections of half-baked, pseudo-philosophical flim flam.

Andy Newman

Stirring stuff on the part of the PRC there, mate.

You flat response of “bollocks” says it all -even though I was talking about the whole of communist rule in China, and of in Cambodia, not just now in China.

Repression still exists in China, but you won’t read about in the People’s Daily where speeches of government ministers droning on about harmony are dutifully reported. It’s certainly horribly true historically.

But judging by your gentle treatment of that, I shudder to think what’s under Andy Newman’s carpet.

As for the Mussolini quote, he left so many definitions that at the face value of his words, Italian Fascism can be many things, a return to Augustine Rome, a proto Keynsian Third way or a Romantic triumph of will over mediocracy. Within this grey zone, you do find cranks like Goldberg and this fella who make a retarded hypothesis stick on one quote for partisan gain.

It does seem he’s embarrassed about combining his campaign against capitalism with working in a rich kids crammer.

Well, we all have to make compromises, son.

I actually went to a meeting of the Green Party yonks ago (I know, I know). 10 or so people were present, including Derek Wall.

A film was shown about how great things are happening in Cuba (or it might be Venezuela, I can’t remember) and how it is a paradise, not just socially but because it’s all “green” and whatnot.

Needless to add, I never went again.

Considering that some greens have a distinctly authoritarian approach it’s a bit much for them to be throwing the Nazi analogy around. Also it lets Labour off the hook for their authoritarianism, a get-out that the prats don’t deserve. Just because they are not Nazis does not mean that they are not cunts.

Case in point - the criminalisation of ‘extreme pornography’ which became law with the 2008 Criminal Justice Act. Conviction depends on the rather subjective assessment of whether the material represents an act that could cause serious injury or death and even covers the possession of mainstream BBFC certificated material if possessed in extract form - video clip or stills. So don’t have any clips of Faye Dunnaway and Warren Beatty being shot up at the end of Bonnie & Clyde or your next meal could be in prison. As they say, you couldn’t make it up.

No, I wouldn’t have shown the Labour rose turning into a swastika; I’d have shown it turning into a scabby arse.

Well, we all have to make compromises, son.

Thats true.
Perhaps the next female principal speaker and left wing maverick could be a Doctor in a private hospital.

Derek Wall’s problems don’t only lie with his Zen Italism (the name he gives for one - he has many - of his new age fads in Babylon and Beyond).

Technically isn’t it Zen Italism?

I’ve not got past tim’s rather splendid link to http://www.paganpartners.co.uk/

Who would of thought that the site would be ‘one of the leading pagan dating services, this site is aimed at helping all people of a pagan faith to find a partner.’? Well, presumably lonely pagans would of thought that - although it does raise the prospect of there being more than one pagan romance site.

Anyway, congrats to them for having a section on the page titled ‘Members of the moment’. I’m sure if you press f5 often enough, Wall will appear.

The so-called ‘Green party’ is a demented, antisemitic pile of crud.

Nonetheless, it astonishes me that so few people realise what a lurch into a police state and quasi-fascism has occurred under ZanuLab.

I read this kind of stuff and weep:

http://www.anucentre.ie/

This is an in-depth course in healing through ESP, qi (ch’i), and working with Angels and Spirit Guides.

Cost €2,200

And here’s me, doing real work like a sucker.

P.

“Derek Wall, the Principal Speaker of the UK Green Party.”

Not for much longer. In fact only until 8pm this coming Friday.

“Let he who is without sin……”

Paul

Great link. It made me weep from laughter. I liked the tributes:

“..It is hard to put into mere words what the whole experience meant to me, but enough to say it was life changing. I feel like a different person to the “me” of last week. Thank you so much.
I gave a reflexology and reiki treatment on Sunday night but being centred, setting your psychic shield, calling in the light, asking your guides to be present was just unbelievable.”
Geraldine Merrick

An Italian guild of the time was not your current day trade union but big business alliences, the corporation in itself is a judicial definition, it is big business what is of worry, that said he should have used the fasces as opposed to swastika, but I doubt the neocons here would have gotten it.

Some chap already coined it but it is always best to remember:

Fascism: Big business controlling government
Communism: Government controlling Big business

“while privatising virtually everything that moved under the esteemed advice of the University of Chicago”

And now Chile has the highest per capita GDP in Latin America by a long way…excellent result for Chicago.

Lies you fucking dumbass, Chile barely leads the region in both the PPP and Nominal GDP per capita field for the first time in 07, this year Venezuela will pass them on the nominal GDP per capita camp.

Not to denigrate Chile but they are not exceptional, they are just doing better than others.

This is beyond parody.

This is beyond parody.

Yes, isn’t John - comparing a social democratic party to fascists!

But that’s not what you meant, was it?

in fairness to Derek Wall and the Greens, whatever failings have are small by comparison with JohnG and the SWP

let’s not forget that Dr. Wall & Co largely supported HP in those troubled times

whereas JohnG and his friends at Lenin’s Tomb were left arguing that ‘ anti-Jewish racism on the UCU activists list was somehow protected by confidentiality and wasn’t HP just a pile of nasty old “zionists” who deserved what they got’ ?

So let’s be a bit more forgiving toward Dr. Wall, as at his crammer he has to put up with thick arse middle class dunces like JohnG, which must be punishment itself.

JohnG, which crammer did you go to?

It’s classic Third Period Stalinism. The CPB’s Gen Sec Rob Griffiths has moved back to this position recently (although he can’t get his party to agree) - so maybe DW has just “gone native” over at the Yawning Star. More zazen needed, obviously…

Benj’s real problem was that the discussion was not about Benji. Now that it is, he is happy.

Yes, isn’t John - comparing a social democratic party to fascists!

‘Social democratic’? Labour? Ha ha. Very droll. Don’t you need to play lip service to liberal values - you know, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech - to qualify? Labour are far from fascists but they are no social democrats either. ‘Tories who have the hots for jobsworths’ might be a better characterisation.

Labour? Ha ha. Very droll. Don’t you need to play lip service to liberal values - you know, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech - to qualify?

Dare I ask - are you suggesting that Labour are clamping down on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience?

I mean if you are, we don’t need to take you very seriously, do we?

Dare I ask - are you suggesting that Labour are clamping down on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience?

The 2000 Terrorism Act, particularly s58. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The recently passed ‘extreme’ porn law in the 2008 CJA. In addition to explicit acts of Parliament, the authorities have become considerably more twitchy about ad-hoc public displays of protest - wear a ‘Bollocks to Blair’ T shirt and see what happens to you. And no, I am not claiming that Britain is a ‘police state’, just challenging your silly notion that Labour is ’social democratic’. By the by, the SDP would be substantially to the left of the present Labour party.

I mean if you are, we don’t need to take you very seriously, do we?

Why would I give a fuck how you take me? I don’t answer to you.

the largest Green Party in local government, in Norwich, is known countrywide only for its ban on foie gras in local chippies

Wow, Norwich must be the workers’ paradise. I take it they haven’t banned caviar yet?

More seriously: never mistake a Green for an environmentalist. Greens in general have some pretty nasty ideas (eg the ideas we have global over-population, ban all international trade - think of that next time they invent a drug in the US - as well as international migration).

“I just think you taking the piss out of Buddhism just sounds too much like a cliched western thing.”

Ho ho. Surely you mean being Principal Speaker of the Green Party and an irrational New Age knob is a cliched western thing, Benji? You got it the wrong way round, my dear fellow. What a fucking prat. Seems my analysis of the fool (and quite poorly-written fool, as well, actually, having read some of his stuff at SU) is still rather more charitable than his view that I am a member of a fascist party.

“it astonishes me that so few people realise what a lurch into a police state and quasi-fascism has occurred under ZanuLab.”

Oh dear, Nearly Oxfordian. It rather pains me to consider that I thought you were a cut-the-crap kind of guy a couple of weeks ago, when actually you’re clearly a lets-spew-the-crap-around-hysterically-and-then-heap-it-into-an-EU-crap-moutain kinda guy instead. Oh well. We all make mistakes, and I shouldn’t be too harsh on myself, eh?

wear a ‘Bollocks to Blair’ T shirt and see what happens to you

My guess is ‘absolutely nothing’.

What’s yours?

XoftheX -

Your original comment was

‘Social democratic’? Labour? Ha ha. Very droll.Don’t you need to play lip service to liberal values - you know, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech - to qualify?

Let’s try and keep things polite - if you think that a girl being arrested by a stupid copper for wearing a t-shirt means that Labour are no longer even paying ‘lip service’ to freedom of expression and conscience, then aren’t you being slightly hyperbolic?

[blockquote]Can we take the piss out of Pagans pleas Benji?

Especially lonely pagans?[/blockquote]

Maid Marion looking for her Robin Hood… oh, that’s so cute.

More seriously: never mistake a Green for an environmentalist.

Speaking of which.

“Dare I ask - are you suggesting that Labour are clamping down on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience?”

How is the atmosphere on your planet?

What a dumb jerk you are, Ben. ZanuLab allows Chinese goons to attack law-abiding British citizens on the streets of London. ZanuLab did the same itself during the Chinese state visit 10 years ago. We have more CCTV cameras per square inch than any other country (possibly with the exception of China and North Korea). We have oppressive laws as listed above. We have local authorities empowered to clamp down on all kinds of ordinary protests. We have students arrested for calling a horse ‘gay’ and for throwing a plastic water bottle to a tree-top protester (he was arrested for ‘littering’). So just eff off.

A wee Bibliography on Fascism, more substantual than a single quote

R Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, (London, Routledge, 1993)

R Griffin, Fascism: A Reader (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995)

R Griffin, Fascism and Modernism, (London: Palgrave, 2007)

- Griffin’s work deals with Fascism as a ‘normal’ ideology, thus looking at its aims and its internal logic rather than its manifestations. Just as Socialism is a collective effort to address material and political inequality or Anarchism the abolition of unequal levels of power, Fascism’s core is ideological and ‘transcendental’. Griffin in ‘The Nature of Fascism’ defines an ideal type, the essence of generic fascism being a palingenetic form of ultra nationalism, one entirely concentrated on the remaking of both the national community and the individual citizen. His latest, ‘Fascism and Modernism’, is in my humble opinion one of the best history books of the last 20 years.

W Laqueur eds., Fascism: a reader’s guide, (Cambridge, University Press, 1991)

- Written in the late seventies I think, This is a good compilation of work looking at the contours of what defines fascism from other violent systems of Government

SU Larson eds., Who are the Fascists (Stockholm, Global Book Resources, 1980)

- Another collection, very mixed but with fine articles by Stanley Payne, Leev Barbu and S Andreski

M Mann, Fascists (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004)

- An political sociologist’s analysis, supports many of the contentions of the ‘culturalist’ view point of Griffin, Payne, Roger Eatwell, Mosse and Sternhell. Has a bit of the ‘Iberian’ family of Authoritarians

S Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition, (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1980)

S Payne, A History of Fascism 1919-1945, (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1996)

- The grandee of Fascist studies. Analyses in depth the connection between Fascism, the radical right and Conservative Authoritarianism. An expert of the Falange. One flaw is his contention that fascism died in 1945. I believe it evolved.

H Rogger and E Weber eds., The European Right: a historical profile, (London : Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1965)

- An early attempt at the fascist minimum, still factually rich.

GL Mosse, The fascist revolution : toward a general theory of fascism, (New York : H. Fertig, c1999)

- Another Grand Old Man of Fascist studies, very good, very evocative.

Z Sternhell, The birth of fascist ideology : from cultural rebellion to political revolution, (Princeton, N.J. ; Chichester : Princeton University Press, c1994)

- Again a highly evocative account, Sternhell (unusually) is quite insistent that Fascism cannot be applied to the Third Reich

You will excuse me, I trust, NO, if I say that I cannot in all conscience say that I consider any of these events to be the end of liberal democracy. I’ve tried to strain myself in order to win your sage approval, but I just can’t quite get myself in The Zone, you know?

One thing that is terrible though - I had no idea it was official Party policy to crack down hard on homophobia against police officers’ horses. But now I realise that this is an Edict from the Central Committee of the Party, I will don my rose-petal armband and get out there and do my officious bit. After all, die Partei hat immer rechts, ja, NO? “Tony, Tony, uber alles, uber alles in die Welt…”

(Sorry for the cod-German - it’s been a while.)

Oh Benji, you twat.

I’ve never been here before. Is this blog for stand-up comedians to rehearse their new material?

Douglas Coker

What a bunch of tossers!