It may seem strange to anyone who is a long term resident here, but we have had an outbreak of democracy.
The executive decided that we should go to war.
They consulted parliament.
Parliament said no.
War is cancelled.
In terms of geopolitics, this is probably something of a non event. It will not have much impact on any US decision to attack Syria or not. And the UK contribution is small enough to be negligible.
For years we British thought that our army was the best in the world. Then we were humiliated in Basra and Helmand. That has taught the sane amongst us that we are not so special.
We have to adjust to the newly perceived reality. Even if our leaders can't perceive it.
It seems our parliament can.
For the first time since Vietnam, the UK will not join the US in a military adventure.
For the first time since Suez the parliamentary opposition has opposed the government on military action.
For the first time since 1782 the government has los such a vote. To put that in context, the Americans had yet to win their revolutionary war back then.
This may not be a great geopolitical event, but in UK terms it is seismic. We are no longer first in the queue for military action or for backing the Americans.
We might even develop an independent foreign policy.
Friday, 30 August 2013
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
Stumble on Syria
The time has now come for Syria to be attacked.
The reason? Pride.
The vast number killed was not enough.
The sensitive strategic location was not enough.
No. It is because the US President, Mr Obama declared a red line, and that line was crossed. So the USA must attack Syria to maintain 'credibility'.
No matter that the Syrian civil war has morphed from a struggle against the regime for basic rights into a fight for survival against Islamic fundamentalists. No matter that America plans to provide air cover for the allies of al Qaeda. No matter that the Kurds and the Christians of Syria, pushed to choose sides, reluctantly opt for al Assad as the lesser of two evils, no matter that even Israel no longer deploys its rhetoric against the Assad regime.
Do the people of America not wonder that in Egypt a democratically elected government is deposed by the military, their government does nothing. Islamic fundamentalists seek to take over Syria, and America's leaders, so blinded by their hatred of Iran, fight alongside.
American pride is wounded. Syria must be attacked.
What hubris is this? Was nothing learnt in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Can a nation march to war in such pride and arrogance then leave victorious?
Alternatively, could the Syrian straw, added to the myriad other burdens be the one that breaks the American back?
We are about to find out.
Pity the poor of Syria. Their homes are a battlefield.
The reason? Pride.
The vast number killed was not enough.
The sensitive strategic location was not enough.
No. It is because the US President, Mr Obama declared a red line, and that line was crossed. So the USA must attack Syria to maintain 'credibility'.
No matter that the Syrian civil war has morphed from a struggle against the regime for basic rights into a fight for survival against Islamic fundamentalists. No matter that America plans to provide air cover for the allies of al Qaeda. No matter that the Kurds and the Christians of Syria, pushed to choose sides, reluctantly opt for al Assad as the lesser of two evils, no matter that even Israel no longer deploys its rhetoric against the Assad regime.
Do the people of America not wonder that in Egypt a democratically elected government is deposed by the military, their government does nothing. Islamic fundamentalists seek to take over Syria, and America's leaders, so blinded by their hatred of Iran, fight alongside.
American pride is wounded. Syria must be attacked.
What hubris is this? Was nothing learnt in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Can a nation march to war in such pride and arrogance then leave victorious?
Alternatively, could the Syrian straw, added to the myriad other burdens be the one that breaks the American back?
We are about to find out.
Pity the poor of Syria. Their homes are a battlefield.
Tuesday, 6 August 2013
Marie Antoinette, the feminist
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, remains famous.
She asked if the poor could not buy bread, why not 'let them eat cake?'
It is hard to tell if she was being callously sarcastic, she was so far removed from reality she really did not understand them to be too poor to eat or if she was some sort of progressive who would have liked to throw open the royal kitchens.
She was given a bad press by the revolutionary leaders because she was Austrian. Foreign. And while (at the beginning of the revolution) it could be seen as disloyal to attack the king, attacking him through the malign influence of his scheming wife was far more acceptable.
She was the soft underbelly of the monarchy.
Powerless, yet condemned because of her husband's governments' failings.
A feminist icon if ever there was one!
It is often forgotten today, but the real reason Marie Antoinette was reviled by the people was her 'farm'. She actually had a miniature farm made so she could learn something of the life of the poor.
But the poor saw it differently. What was back breaking work for them was some sort of 'play' for her.
Again Marie Antoinette presaged the modern feminist. Most women, particularly mothers, who go out to work do so to provide for their families. Just like most men. They are far more likely to be cleaners or nurses than they are lawyers or doctors.
Yet when I hear feminists talk, it is not about work. It is about 'career'. About the self worth and fulfilment of 'doing something productive'. Of proving their worth, showing they can make it in a place of work. This is not the sort of talk I hear from cleaners.
It is not about doing it for the money.
Guess what, 'work' IS about doing it for the money. When 'career' becomes more important than the earnings, it is no longer work, it is play.
The modern career minded feminist truly is a present day Marie Antoinette. Has she any idea how her talk sounds to a mother who can't afford to stop work and spend time with her children? Mothers who are condemned to endless hours of drudgery while the state takes their children and offers substandard child care, and misguided early attempts at education.
Indeed, they are cut from the same cloth.
I have far more in common with a poor working mother than any career following feminist ever will.
She asked if the poor could not buy bread, why not 'let them eat cake?'
It is hard to tell if she was being callously sarcastic, she was so far removed from reality she really did not understand them to be too poor to eat or if she was some sort of progressive who would have liked to throw open the royal kitchens.
She was given a bad press by the revolutionary leaders because she was Austrian. Foreign. And while (at the beginning of the revolution) it could be seen as disloyal to attack the king, attacking him through the malign influence of his scheming wife was far more acceptable.
She was the soft underbelly of the monarchy.
Powerless, yet condemned because of her husband's governments' failings.
A feminist icon if ever there was one!
It is often forgotten today, but the real reason Marie Antoinette was reviled by the people was her 'farm'. She actually had a miniature farm made so she could learn something of the life of the poor.
But the poor saw it differently. What was back breaking work for them was some sort of 'play' for her.
Again Marie Antoinette presaged the modern feminist. Most women, particularly mothers, who go out to work do so to provide for their families. Just like most men. They are far more likely to be cleaners or nurses than they are lawyers or doctors.
Yet when I hear feminists talk, it is not about work. It is about 'career'. About the self worth and fulfilment of 'doing something productive'. Of proving their worth, showing they can make it in a place of work. This is not the sort of talk I hear from cleaners.
It is not about doing it for the money.
Guess what, 'work' IS about doing it for the money. When 'career' becomes more important than the earnings, it is no longer work, it is play.
The modern career minded feminist truly is a present day Marie Antoinette. Has she any idea how her talk sounds to a mother who can't afford to stop work and spend time with her children? Mothers who are condemned to endless hours of drudgery while the state takes their children and offers substandard child care, and misguided early attempts at education.
Indeed, they are cut from the same cloth.
I have far more in common with a poor working mother than any career following feminist ever will.
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Trolling the feminists
A woman (Ms Criado Perez) has run a campaign for women to be featured on Bank of England bank notes.
She was, subsequently, subjected to all manner of abuse and threats. Including threats of rape.
This has become something of a news story here in the UK.
The original issue, whether a place on the back of a bank note should be reserved for a woman, leaves me in the same baffled state that the gay marriage debate did. I really don't see the deal. Jane Austen is a worthy enough figure, but as other writers who have been on bank notes go (Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare) she really looks like the poor relation. The reason women don't often appear on bank notes is that people on bank notes are significant historical figures. Women just did not have the same opportunity to do great things as men did in centuries gone by. It should serve as a salutary lesson in the injustice of the past that we do not have too many great women candidates.
Putting some women on anyhow kind of sweeps that under the carpet in my view.
But really, I find it difficult to give a damn either way. If it really is that important to some people, let them have it. I would like to take the woman off the front, but don't too much care who is on the back of a bank note.
Of all the injustice in the world, is this issue really worth the fight for Ms Criado Perez?
Then there is the secondary issue, which has far outgrown the original debate. It is a significant level of really unpleasant abuse hurled at Ms Criado Perez. Seemingly, these people along with their target, really do care about who is on the bank notes.
Or maybe not.
Ms Criado Perez and feminists in general seem to think this is all about 'shutting them up'. That that is the motivation of people who target them.
There are young males who spend too much time on line abusing other people. I can't know for sure, but it really does seem true that there is at least an informal group of young males who particularly like to abuse women on line. They probably think it is funny, or banter. They probably do it on line because the anonymity means they can generally get away with it.
But is it really about 'shutting women up'? So far as I can tell feminist thought (insofar as it is a single unified idea) on the issue is that society in general disapproves of women having a voice, and that much every day sexism is aimed at 'shutting them up' so that only men are heard.
I do not think that feminists are particularly well qualified to diagnose the motives of the abusers. I expect the abusers would be disappointed if they all shut up. I think they would miss the 'banter'. They may even be silly enough to assume their targets also enjoy the exchange. That 'they love it really'.
I think feminists conflate the actions of these abusers with the every day desire men often express, and much more often feel, for women to shut up.
Most men I know would see things differently. They might like the women in their lives to shut up not so much so only they are heard, but so that they might have some time hearing nothing at all. That is something that women seem totally unable to grasp.
She was, subsequently, subjected to all manner of abuse and threats. Including threats of rape.
This has become something of a news story here in the UK.
The original issue, whether a place on the back of a bank note should be reserved for a woman, leaves me in the same baffled state that the gay marriage debate did. I really don't see the deal. Jane Austen is a worthy enough figure, but as other writers who have been on bank notes go (Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare) she really looks like the poor relation. The reason women don't often appear on bank notes is that people on bank notes are significant historical figures. Women just did not have the same opportunity to do great things as men did in centuries gone by. It should serve as a salutary lesson in the injustice of the past that we do not have too many great women candidates.
Putting some women on anyhow kind of sweeps that under the carpet in my view.
But really, I find it difficult to give a damn either way. If it really is that important to some people, let them have it. I would like to take the woman off the front, but don't too much care who is on the back of a bank note.
Of all the injustice in the world, is this issue really worth the fight for Ms Criado Perez?
Then there is the secondary issue, which has far outgrown the original debate. It is a significant level of really unpleasant abuse hurled at Ms Criado Perez. Seemingly, these people along with their target, really do care about who is on the bank notes.
Or maybe not.
Ms Criado Perez and feminists in general seem to think this is all about 'shutting them up'. That that is the motivation of people who target them.
There are young males who spend too much time on line abusing other people. I can't know for sure, but it really does seem true that there is at least an informal group of young males who particularly like to abuse women on line. They probably think it is funny, or banter. They probably do it on line because the anonymity means they can generally get away with it.
But is it really about 'shutting women up'? So far as I can tell feminist thought (insofar as it is a single unified idea) on the issue is that society in general disapproves of women having a voice, and that much every day sexism is aimed at 'shutting them up' so that only men are heard.
I do not think that feminists are particularly well qualified to diagnose the motives of the abusers. I expect the abusers would be disappointed if they all shut up. I think they would miss the 'banter'. They may even be silly enough to assume their targets also enjoy the exchange. That 'they love it really'.
I think feminists conflate the actions of these abusers with the every day desire men often express, and much more often feel, for women to shut up.
Most men I know would see things differently. They might like the women in their lives to shut up not so much so only they are heard, but so that they might have some time hearing nothing at all. That is something that women seem totally unable to grasp.
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