Should Barack be “watching his back” in Denver
August 15th, 2008
Could the Clintons “hog” the convention limelight?
The big overnight news is that Hillary’s name will be going forward to a roll call vote on the Tuesday leaving open the remote possibility that she could still win. The Obama team has agreed to this as a means of keeping some of the most ardent Hillary supporters on board.
About 45% of the delegates are for Hillary and the big danger for Obama is that the media could build this up into a more dramatic event than it is taking away some of the spotlight away from him.
Meanwhile the former Clinton aide who is now the most ferocious critic of the couple. Dick Morris, is warning the presumed nominee to “watch his back”. He believes that their aim is to stop Obama from winning so Hillary can stand in 2012.
He writes: “By hogging the publicity at the Democratic Convention and by keeping the spotlight away from Obama, the Clintons are going to do all they can to stop the Democrat from getting a bounce from his Convention appearance. How will they hurt Obama down the road? Bill will make off-handed comments, seemingly mistakes. A lose cannon, he will appear to be undisciplined as he follows a game plan to undermine the candidate. Hillary will do her best to avoid campaigning for Obama and will undercut him in any way she can without getting caught.”
More speakers have been announced including several who have been tipped as possible running mates - Evan Bayh and Bill Richardson amongst them. There’s an assumption that being given a slot is an indication that they have not been chosen. Whether that is true or not we will have to wait and see.
As the excellent VP Watch site notes: Speaking slots have still not been announced for: Gen. Wesley Clark, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and “Most of the rest of the people in the world.”
Live White House race betting prices.
Mike Smithson
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Of course Obama should always watch his back. Also his front, sides, top, bottom and whatever else you can think of.
BUT personally think that he’s in pretty good shape going into the convention. Hilary and Bill Clinton, and their supporters, will show America and the world that they are part of the solution, not the problem.
Sound advice for Obama.
Very interesting article from Martin Kettle in the Guardian on Brown’s dilemma about the timing of the Glenrothes by election.
Go early and take the hit - or go late and risk a knockout?
“Seen from now, in the middle of August 2008, Labour seems willing to allow Brown another chance to ring the bell on its behalf. In my view that is a piece of self-indulgence Labour cannot afford. Yet if I am wrong, as I may be, and the Brown strategy is to have some chance of succeeding - however modestly such success must now be defined - then Labour has to find a way of taking the electorate’s punch in Glenrothes and not allowing that punch to lay it on the canvas. That way is to hold the byelection at the earliest possible, if ominous, date: September 11.”
One big question re: Wesley Clark is his statement (I paraphrase) that John McCain’s military service consisted of getting himself shot down.
Now personally think this was a low blow, because as I understand it, an officer held by the enemy as a prisoner of war has the positive duty to resist his captors. Meaning that JMcC was performing a very hazardous but also very important military duty while a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. And did it well.
Of course can be argued that Democrats need to take a lot of wacks against McCain this year, some very heavy wacks. BUT I would argue that attacking McC on his miltary service is worse than a waste of time. Especailly as he is extremely vulnerable on ISSUES and POLICY. Attack McCain for his wrong ideas and bad votes, not for forgeting to salute or failing to win the Medal of Honor.
I don’t think you need to assume a cunning plot to undermine Obama to explain the Clintons wanting to hog the limelight. Their ego’s would be a simpler explanation. As long as Obama is doing OK in the polls, they won’t want to be seen to be the ones who mess things up for the Democrats. The only danger for Obama here is if there’s some other event, gaffe or scandal that knocks his campaign off course right before the convention and tempts the Clintons to make a last-ditch attempt to grab the nomination.
On the VP thing, it’s worth reading this post before trying to deduce the VP candidate from the speaking order:
“The fact is that if the convention planners and schedulers in Denver know the identity of Obama’s Vice Presidential selection, that means a lot of people know. And if a lot of people know, that means the media would know.
But the media doesn’t know.”
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/bayhdenkabelius.html
Sea Shanty Irish@3: Did you see the interview where Clark made the comments about McCain getting shot down? In context, it doesn’t come across as a low blow at all; He made a bunch of points about McCain not having the kind of experience making decisions at a high level that was needed for a president, and the interviewer said something like, “Surely getting shot down and imprisoned qualifies you to be Commander In Chief”. Clark foolishly repeated the interviewer’s words and said it didn’t, and the clip got shown out of context.
The problem with Clark here isn’t that he was making a low blow - it’s that he walked straight into a trap that a competent politician should have seen coming. If the idea of his candidacy is that he’s supposed to be able to take on the Republicans on national security, you have to wonder whether he really has the skills to take on this very delicate task without blowing the Obama campaign off message again.
Of course Clark also has the whole “idiotic bellicosity nearly started a war with the Russians” problem, but I don’t suppose he has to worry about McCain attacking him on that…
I like it. A ‘lose’ cannon - how very apt !
538.com : “McCainocrats could out-percentage Obamacans as a percentage of each party’s respective base”
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
6. Not that apt - Clinton may be many things but he wasn’t a loser, as the first Democrat to serve two full terms since FDR.
O/T Just seen the funniest thing at the Olymics so far - the South African competitor has recorded a perfect … zero … in the women’s springboard diving.
Dick Morris is a touch OTT. I don’t know for sure, but using UK values if there was a whiff of the Clintons undermining a GE campaign then they would be toast. It would even rip the party apart. I doubt they are that crass. Looks to me like the Clintons are lining up a sympathetic VP and with Hillary leading the Senate. Much cleverer.
In politics, it’s always possible to see plots, conspiricies and manouvring through circumstancial evidence if you look hard enough. Barack has no need to watch his back on this one: it makes sense to put Hillary’s name to the vote. Apart from anything else, it will kill the die-hard Hillaryite’s claim that she would have won had it been put to the vote and that Obama was scared to do so. This is a move of strength not weakness, given that he doesn’t technically have the votes (superdelegate pledges don’t count until they’re made firm in a ballot - they can still switch up until then).
The media will also be interested in it. Conventions (and UK party conferences) used to be interesting when they were less predictable. Although everyone thinks they know what’s going to happen, and is almost certainly right, there’ll probably be better coverage as a result - no bad thing for Barack.
From a betting standpoint, what will be worth watching is the V-P markets. There is a dynamic here that could affect things greatly. If Hillary delivers a barnstorming speech on the Tuesday, riding a fine line between supporting Obama and touching every button that got her and her supporters this far, followed up by a convention vote that reminds everyone just how close the election was, both she and Obama could find themselves in a position where it is difficult for him not to accept her as running mate, and for her not to accept.
Has Hillary said anything that indicates real support for Obama yet? I’ve not been following closely and may have missed it, but I haven’t seen anything other than continuing self-promotion. He needs to watch his back.
Who ever wins, the US housing market is going to take some TLC.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/2560303/House-sold-for-1-in-sign-of-US-property-crisis.html
Still if you’r in Detroit, with a pocket full of loose change, could be a remarkable investment opportunity.
Just a thought, but is it really a bad thing for Obama if the Clintons hog the limelight? given that one of the more successful lines of attack on him over the last month or so has been that he’s a egotistical lightweight full of self-importance, wouldn’t it help to counter that image to be seen showing a bit of humility by stepping back for a moment and allowing a defeated rival a moment in the limelight?
Of course it could just be that by allowing Hillary her vote (which she’ll lose) and her speech in the convention hall - which will be placed into context (i.e. dwarfed) by Obama’s in the football stadium - that he’s just saying to her and her supporters “Look, however you look at it she’s lost, fair and square. Now stop sulking and get with the program.”…
After a few weeks when its been about Obama and McCain, it’s all about Hilary again. The release of campaign memos, articles on the Hilary fanatics still keeping the flame alive and the run up to the Convention and how Hilary and Bill will take part. Pleased to see she isn’t , as first appeared, a keynote speaker but the Democrats are being damaged by her failure to really accept she lost.
Commentators have said Gordon Brown has become an unwelcome guest with hosts trying to hint its time to go but Hlary is much more of one - it should be all about Obama but even if Hilary and Bill make supportive speeches the “I” word will predominate over the references to Obama.
15 - I think we are in danger of mapping the fan clubs views on to the object of their affection.
If McCain makes it, and when DC becomes PM, will it be, ‘Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/08/cameron-adopts.html
See you all in Stalingrad.
15. There’ll be two months for Obama after the convention when it will be all about Obama. As Random has rightly pointed out at [14], Hillary’s speech and the vote will be about closure on the nomination process. Although the widespread assumption is that Obama has won the nomination - an assumption not entirely contradicted by the facts of votes and delegates it has to be said - it is not yet his as of right: he doesn’t have the pledged delegates. If he wants to stop Hillary’s supporters from alledging that he was too scared to call a proper vote or that it was ‘fixed’, the process has to be allowed to play out. Now it will be, and he will win.
13. Nice article.
I particularly liked the last paragraph
17, nooo! You mean he won’t be a pacifist like this government?:(
20 - Mr Morris Dancer, have you seen this weeks Spectator? There’s an article might appeal..
21, Keeley Hazell to be Minister for Women?
Alas, I haven’t. Any chance of a link?
22 - Every chance…
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/892526/on-the-road-with-a-longdistance-morris-dancer.thtml
5 - The point Clark was making (and which needs to be made) is that the fact McCain has a strong military service record does not qualify him to be CiC any more than anyone else. From Obama’s point of view it is better that that point is made by someone who themselves has a strong military service record, rather than from Obama himself.
Whatever flak Clark may have got at the time, the point is now clearly made.
20
Well Morris Dancer, as soon as Dave is in, you can prove your patriotic credentials by rushing to join the colours. Who knows you could be another Andy McNab.
p.s.
Make sure you get a book deal sorted first!
23, what a mighty and noble achievement:)
I do like good old-fashioned English eccentrics.
26 - Yup, me too!
If the Clintons even think about pulling a stunt like this, the Republicans will take another step closer to the White House.
Hillary and Bill Clinton would evidently rather see McCain in the White House than Obama, which I think is a shocking demonstration of their ability to humbly accept defeat and put the good of the country ahead of their own political ambitions.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
I fully love the Clintons. They rank in terms of self-interested political couples above the Ceausescus and even the Wintertons.
Morning all
Well, if I have a choice between David Cameron and Mikhail Gorbachev when it comes to a coherent opinion on Russia, it’s Gorby every time for me and his article does much to demolish Cameron’s bellicose rantings.
To me, it’s shades of the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Either accidentally or otherwise, Saddam got the impression that the annexation of Kuwait by Iraq would not be resisted by the West. In the same way, the Georgians clearly thought they could go in to South Ossetia with the unequivocal support of the West against a Russia who perhaps would do nothing.
Moscow is making it clear that NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is not an option as far as it is concerned. On the other hand, nobody has coherently argued a position where we could have intervened militarily in Georgia without starting a shooting war or significantly ramping up international tension.
South Ossetia cannot be compared to Kuwait of course and neither should our response. After nearly two decades of American supremacy, we are moving back into a more multi-polar environment. Yes, American military force, when applied, is still supreme but the freedom of action or inaction has gone.
Dealing with Iran, for example, will require more diplomacy and the emergence of China as a major regional power will need managing. It worries me that Cameron, at the first whiff of gunpowder, has reverted back to his neo-con roots - I trust the civil servants he is speaking to now will remind him of the long tradition of successful diplomacy.
30. What a pompous and self-satisfied post.
30 - The long tradition of diplomacy was backed up the credible threat of something worse. We no longer threaten to use Western muscle if we have to, and even if we did most regimes know it is an idle threat becase half the heads of Western countries are craven and spineless.
Morning again
Further reflection - had of course Georgia been a NATO member, none of this would have happened because a) the other NATO countries would have stopped the Georgians and b) a negotiated and binding settlement of the South Ossetia/Abkhazia disputes with Russia would have been a prerequisite for full membership.
How Georgia, outside NATO, could have expected western military support for its actions, I don’t know. The Georgian attack provided Putin with an opportunity which he has grabbed. Of course, the Russians have no need to go further. Georgia has been miltarily emasculated and I suspect in its future political dealings it will be required to adopt a more pro-Moscow stance.
I suppose a possible future scenario could involve the division of the Ukraine but I also suspect the last thing western leaders want is a situation where NATO and Russian forces are eyeballing each other.
@31:
It was full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. Like much of Stodge’s output.
Way to undermine his agrument with the cretinoleft’s version of Godwin’s Law too: an entirely semantically-void deployment of the word ‘neocon’ as a meaningless and vague insult.
30. Yes Mikhail Gorbachev, very succesful leader of the USSR! Don’t hear much about that country or group of countries anymore!!!
Mikhail Gorbachev does not get opinion poll rating of less than 10% for nothing! Whilst, it was better he took over in the USSR than a hardliner: He failed ultimatly because his state failed! A bit like Gordon Brown here and his Britishness agenda! I wonder if Brown has failed to realise he is onto a hiding to nothing when the British State as it is could well be carved up in the next 5 years time! 
I have been far too busy with other things, so missed this yesterday, but it is fascinating nonetheless:
‘MPs try to block Henry McLeish as candidate’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article4535817.ece
… and yet today the (pro-Labour) Herald is running this:
‘Why McLeish could be ideal candidate’
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2425984.0.Why_McLeish_could_be_ideal_candidate.php
“Mr McLeish, however, confirmed that “two or three people” had approached him from the party.”
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Put-yourself-at-heart-of.4394082.jp
@36:
So, the best way to neutralise the Nats is to select a candidate that agrees with them and is prepared to say so?
Re: 31 - Yeah, and I love you too, runnymede. Do you want to try debate or are you just going to throw some half-hearted jibes ?
Re: 32 - James, what could we have possibly done apart from making it clear to Georgia that what they were doing was a bad move ? The Georgians got the impression that we would support them - how ?
We cannot continue to conduct relations with Russia on the basis that because they aren’t a liberal democracy they are somehow “bad”. This ideological adversarial notion of relations should vanish with Bush and Blair.
38 - Well what Georgia did was unwise, but how long were they supposed to put up with provocation without reacting? The fact is that Russia is becoming a strategic threat to Western interests, it is exerting itself and we need to put it back in its box.
33
If you think all of the NATO countires would have combined, (despite their treaty obligations) and agreed to intervene, you are deluding yourself.
This is an interesting article on the Georgia situation
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-russia-the-bad-guys-who-are-the-west-trying-to-kid-897498.html
36. Just out of interest and i am not bitching about Salmond in the B & B seat standing down early. If Salmond is going to be a key part of the SNP election campaign at the next General election surely he is going to have to stand for the westminister parliament again?
If Salmond did not stand for Westminister the SNP could be shooting themselves in the foot and missing their unique opportunity to promote their agenda. Whilst i acknololge Salmond would be a rare attender in the Commons - it would be pretty pointless for the SNP to campaign on Salmonds record in government in Scotland if he is not actually a candidate!
Think the SNP need to show some clarity on this IMO!
38, perhaps we see them as bad because they run around murdering those who criticise them and then invade a sovereign nation?
@38:
Russia is going through an existential crisis. Not actually evil, but erratic, volatile, aggressive and unstable. The correct course of action is to try to contain Russia, and prevent their volatility from flowing into neighbouring countries.
It doesn’t really matter how Georgia got the idea that sticking their fingers into the South Ossetian plug socket was a good idea, because the ultimate decision lay with them. We need to learn from this and work to ensure that states in or partially in Russia’s sphere of influence learn the value of constructive ambiguity in the future.
Accelerating Georgia’s and Ukraine’s (and the rest’s) membership of NATO will be an essential part of that process, for reasons you’ve already outlined.
Re: 34 & 35: I’ve always thought the two of you should go into light entertainment. After all, neither of you have the talent for politics or debate, that much is clear.
“And it’s an angry rant about Gordon Brown from me and a pointless jibe at Nick Clegg from him”
Interesting how in the surreal world of Martin Day, you only have to be popular to be right. I can see that’s why you’re such a fan of David Cameron. Back in the real world, however, there are times when it’s possible to be unpopular and right. Winston Churchill wasn’t terribly popular when he warned about the threat from Hitler in the 1930s - in fact, he was so unpopular the Conservative party tried to throw him out !! Now, of course, they idolise him..
Gorbachev may not be popular in Russia but I’d take his experience and analysis of Russian affars over yours, Martin Coxall’s and David Cameron’s any day.
@42:
That’s hardly reason enough, is it?
39
Anyone who acts like Goergia did has an idiot as a President. Tweaking a bear’s tail is asking for it to turn round and hit you. And it is so big, one blow floors you.
Everyone knows that. Bleeding obvious.
So anyone who reacted as Georgia’s President did is nuts. Period.
39. but how long were they supposed to put up with provocation without reacting
Forever?
If you were Prime Minister would you have given the order to shell republican strongholds in Nothern Ireland?
Were Susan Sontag alive today, she’d conclude that it was NeoConservatism, not Communism, that was Fascism’s greatest achievement. No other ideology is so arrogantly and ignorantly devoted to eroding pluralistic, liberal democracy at home whilst self-righteously (yet selectively) extolling it abroad.
@44:
History rather shows that Gorbachev’s grip of Russian politics was substandard. Quite why you’d choose him as the base for your opinions is beyond me.
A talent for politics? Well, we’ll see whose party wins the next general election, Stodge. I have a sneaking suspicion it won’t be yours.
O/T, SkyNews:
Repossessions up by 24% year-on-year. No more boom-and-bust…! Ha-ha-hah!
Re: 39 & 40: My point is that I don’t believe NATO would accept Georgian membership until the South Ossetia/Abkhazia disputes had been properly resolved.
James, unfortunately, is showing all the tendencies of the right to go back to the Cold War and the language thereof. “Russia has to be put back in its box” - what does that mean exactly ? Containment - nuclear missiles, please explain.
Some might feel that a country that unilaterally invades another without full UN backing does need to be put in a box so that’s one box for Moscow and one for Washington.
@48:
Whom do you consider a neoconservative?
38- stodge- I thought that post 30 was very good. Of course one would expect Gorbo to know a little more about the Caucuses than forty something Cameron whose only experience of life is Tory 90’s politics, and sod all else.
Seriously, I am worried for Cameron once he becomes PM. There are some very ideological Tories out there who think that he walks on water.
NeoConservatives, d’oh!
51 - Not at all, geopolitics will always be about balances of power, and at various times passive or aggressive competition. Russia seems to wish to upset the balance, the West needs to react such that the balance is restored in the interim and that the balance of power and influence in the world is managed properly. Russia is a medium term security threat, to pretend otherwise is unwise.
47. To continue your analogy, what if the “republicans” in that situation were thinly disguised elements of the Irish army, who had crossed the border and expelled all the protestants in the area they control (the reason why South Ossetia could record a 97% vote in favour of independence in a referendum is because everybody who might have voted no - ethnic Georgians for the most part - was driven out or killed years ago). Would it be alright to move against them then?
Re: 42 - I think the ability to eliminate/detain those who criticise a regime isn’t restricted to Moscow.
Re: 49 - I didn’t realise the entire fate of the Conservative Party rested on your shoulders, Martin. I thought there was an army of Tory activists out there, I didn’t realise it was just you.
As for Gorbachev’s place in history, his failure was not to understand or appreciate the enormous changes he himself had put in train. I think he genuinely thought it was possible for the Communist Party to continue to govern a modernised USSR. Once the apparatus of terror had been withdrawn, the whole edifice crumbled.
It is thanks to Gorbachev that we no longer have a Berlin Wall and thoudands of NATO and Warsaw Pact troops facing each other in a divided Germany. Thanks to Gorbachev, I can now find a Polish builder or buy Romanian food from the shop in the Barking Road. I still think his analysis of Russian politics is worth reading.
O/T, England’s latest national hero:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7561800.stm
44. Yes Mikhail Gorbachev is not in office any longer! Indeed he has been gone almost as long as Thatcher! Mikhail Gorbachev is also obviously biased on this from his Russian base.
I return the compliment on my posts with your words “you only have to be popular to be right”. Obviously i am not popular on this website but i am right!
I obviously don’t have your olymipian interlect and all my predictions about Brown, GE2007, the faltering economy, housing slump were lucky guesses! My thoughts on Salmond having to stand again in westminister again are also obviously not going to carry much weight! Salmond is in a real tough position for the next GE unless he stands! :Smile: Could be very uncomfortable U-Turn for him there IMO! 
43
Why doesn’t the UK do what it did with Poland in ‘38, give Georgia a guarantee that if they are invaded we would declare war.
Perhaps Dave who seems to becoming over all, ‘warrior like’ (Obviously determined to be more TB than TB) could make it clear that would be the UK’s stance before the GE.
Even GB couldn’t fail to win a GE if Dave did that.
Good Morning. This from the last thread:
I warned everyone yesterday on a previous thread that The KLINTONS would make a bid for the Vice -Presidency; Even Ididn’t think they would have the hutzpa to try for the presideny itself.
But they are. The God’s weep!
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/clintons-name-goes-in-hat-for-democrats.html
by weathercock August 14th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Matt J @ 47 asks: “If you were Prime Minister would you have given the order to shell republican strongholds in Northern Ireland?
British Prime Minister or Israeli Prime Minister?
55. Do you not realise how one-sided that view is? Accusing Russia of a vague desire to ‘upset the balance’ when it’s the USA busy installing a missile defence shield which actually does upset the balance…
57 - Gorbachev played a part in the final collapse of the Soviet system. That part manifested itself in the fact that the collapse was relatively bloodless. That the system collapsed was largely due to internal inconsistencies and the ratcheting up of external pressure from the likes of Thatcher and Reagan.
Re: 55 - James, I think we need to work out what the “balance” is. From a Russian perspective, that balance moved disadvantageously after 1989. My view is that Putin, while not wanting the expense of a network of client states and not advocating command-style Communism, is looking to establish a “balance” where Russia has more influence on the world stage.
We tend to look at this from an Anglo-American perspective. We might think the years since 1989 have been positive with America enjoying almost unparalleled freedom of action but other parts of the globe see it differently.
65. Personally i prefer US. Hegemony to a bi-polar or even possibly a tri-polar world. The uni-polar world that is current has been unstable but i think the ‘Muslim problem’ would have occured anyway.
65 - I feel that is a mis-reading as he seems to want to recreate a buffer of states around him that are hollowed out husks that look to Moscow before doing anything on a world stage.
We shall all remind ourselves of Russian History. There is no way that any, (And I mean any) Russian leader regardless of that leaders political perpective, going to allow what they see as encirclement to take place.
The reason! there are about 25,000,000 of them buried in the soil of Russia. Putin had no alternative, we in the West should remember that and respect it.
OT. Another economic record for Gordon to trumpet!
The pound fell for an 11th day against the dollar, the longest run of declines in at least 37 years
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEUEOOB1.rSY&refer=worldwide
It may not strictly be political betting, but I’ve been betting against GBP on the back of the coming economic recession in the last three days and I can’t believe how profitable it’s been. If it carries onlike this I think there will be significant political impact as well, as its basically saying global investors have now lost confidence in the UK.
The Telegraph spells out the problem
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/14/bcnus114.xml
If it falls to $1.50-$1.60 as they are now openly talking about, I foresee some big problems.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/14/bcnster114.xml
re 17 “let slip” surely
69. Well hopefully it will assist exports on the longer run
68 - It is very rare that there is no alternative, certainly there was an alternative to what transpired in this particular instance.
I’m not on the right, and I’m pretty sure I’m not a neoconservative (by any of the definitions floating around here), but can someone explain to me when we all became relativists?
Post #63 remarks that weare being one-sided.
Post #51 draws an equivalence between the US invading Iraq and Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
I can sometimes understand Conservative frustrations with the Left - the idea that we can’t criticise Russia until we are morally perfected is ridiculous - we launched a war to remove a dictator (and I opposed it), Russia is overthrowing a democratically elected leader on its borders: there is a qualitative difference. It seems there is no ill overseas that cant be trumped by the ills of the US (human rights, democracy, war): are we really drawing moral equivalence?
One day there will be another hegemonic superpwer. If that isn’t the US, it scares me to think who it will be. For all its faults, as long as the US is on top of the pecking order, the standard set is democracy, capitalism, and individual rights (and a complete absence of stomach for actual empire). We’re goign to look back on these as the good old days.
Is that one-sided? Yes - it’s the side that I’m on.
63. How to put this simply -
1. Poland is a member of NATO.
2. The USA is also a member of NATO.
3. NATO is a defensive alliance.
4. One member of a defensive alliance installing equipment in an other that helps it meet the terms of that alliance does not “upset” anything.
5. The defence system in question will stop one or two missiles at a time, max.
6. Russia has thousands of missiles.
Therefore:
a. This is obviously no threat to Russia.
b. It does however put US military personnel on the ground in Poland.
c. After recent events in Georgia can you honestly blame the poles for wanting US troops on the ground?
d. All (b) and (c) combined do is raise the risks involved in Russia attempting to do the same thing to poland that it has done to Georgia.
e. The fact that the Russians are screaming blue murder about this clearly implies they want to keep the option of threatening Poland with the same thing that has been done to Georgia.
Which leaves me with one last question to ask you -
Why is it legitimate for Russia to be able to make such threats, but provocative on the parts of the likely victims to take steps that would make such threats more risky and less credible for the Russians? Because that’s what it boils down to at the end of the day.
@57:
Nope, Stodge, it’s all me. Seriously, for somebody who claims to want to have a serious debate, it was a pretty cheap shot. Political talent ultimately boils down to winning elections, and as a team effort, my team is doing a great deal better than yours. So I’d be careful with those allegations of political talent, matey boy.
Now, I don’t think anybody here especially wants to get into an actual shooting war. I don’t think Dave does. I don’t think McCain does.
But Russia is erratic and unstable, and it does need to be contained for the good of the caucasus and Eastern Europe. Diplomacy will be the primary mechanism for that containment, but as has been repeatedly observed, diplomacy needs to be backed up with credible threats of force.
Bluffing when you have no hand at all is rarely a good strategy.
#69
Off course, falling Sterling off-sets falling oil-prices. No drop in inflation then…!
Thank you Gormless Brown’s New Labour…!
70
CRY HAVOC AND LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR…Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Although I have seen it as, ‘Slip’
re 69 not least in that oil at $150 and £1=$2 was only £75 per barrel, but at $115 and £1=$1.50 is £77 per barrel. Inlfation is meant to peak next month.
74. So do you believe that the technology won’t get any better over time? Ultimately missile defence would be the end of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.
re 74 but Poland doesn’t border in the conventional sense, like Georgia does. They’d have to invade Belarus or one of the baltic states first, unless you would expect a breakout of Kaliningrad
@77:
It is ’slip’ I’m afraid, Coldstone:
ANTONY:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
That’s McCain’s campaign slogan.
Re: 75 - Of course, I can’t deny that at present the Conservatives are doing well. The Tories will probably win the next election but then the governance of this country will be their responsibility.
The Tories must then expect to be held to the same level of scrutiny, jibe and insult that they have hurled at other parties over the past couple of years.
As far as debates are concerned, pal, I’ll continue scrutinising and criticising and insulting the Tories in Government just as I have in Opposition. The only problem will be that if or when the Tories screw things up, we’ll all suffer.
re 77 I did Julius Caesar for O level and I certain that my text had “let slip”
79. Not without years of warning, no. Missile defence is *hard*. and i repeat - why should Russia have a right to make such threats anyway?
80. Belarus is a client state that would do nothing to stop the Russians entering - the local government has already applied several times to rejoin Russia and been turned down (because Belarus is a squalid mess even by Russian standards apparently), and the Russians have already been turning the screws on Lithuania about getting a land corridor to Kaliningrad, it is by no means improbable that they could start trying to squeeze the Poles too.
@82:
Expect? Looking forward to it, I suspect. The average Tory seems to relish a right old Barney when the Lib Dems get round to unleashing the full force of their passive-aggressive envy.
Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
~ ~ ~ from “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare
I think some editions its loose and some its slip.
57. The strange sympathy for Russia that has infected some posters in recent days seems to amount to little more than an alternative projection of anti-Americanism. Georgia is seen as a setback for the US, Bush and the illuminati (sorry neocons) and Russia’s triumph must therefore be a good thing.
What follows is a series of strange attempts to twist the facts in order to make it look like Russia actually has some justification for its actions, to try to cover up the more unpleasant underlying motivations for taking a pro-Russian stance.
@86:
Well, I prefer ’slip’. SO THERE.
78. are you sure you aren’t making up the numbers to suit a PoV?
If you look here its, ‘Loose’
http://www.bartleby.com/66/85/50085.html
@90:
That must be from the Director’s Cut.
Re: 87 - Yours is, of course, the stock response to anyone who dares question the “received wisdom” of the political right that Russia is the aggressor and we must protect the poor defenceless Georgians.
Unfortunately, the real world isn’t as straightforward and simplistic as you make it out to be.
The facts, of course, don’t enter into it…
30 (and later posts) The problem with arguing that Georgia thought it had the right to go into South Ossetia as Saddam did with Kuwait, is South Ossetia is part of Georgia. Gorgia has every right to ‘go in’ because it is ‘in’.
Regarding the notion of provocation. I was living in Russia until Tuesday, and an acquaintance of mine told me that he had met with a couple of his friends in the Russian army a little over a week before fighting broke out and was told that they had been given orders to be on instant alert to go to Georgia. There is no question that the Russians were planning this before the ‘provocation’ of Georgia attacking armed men operating within its own borders.
89, sounds like you’ve read the tattered remains of the Budget, and those hilarious one-liners about growth forecasts.
48. Sontag claimed communism was fascism’s acheivement! That’s leftist genius! Mussolini and Hitler were both motivated by anti-communism and the imminent threat of revolution in their countries. Wow. I’ve never read Sontag, now I know I don’t have to.
@92:
You can prove anything with facts.
The problem is, Stodge, your use of the word ‘neocon’ seemed to mark you out as some kind of adherent of idiot-left anti-American conspiracy theories, rather than the more thoughtful (but wrong) poster we all know you to be. There was a bizarre incongruity there, and I think it’s causing Runnymede the same problems.
There has been an attempt by some of the more outlandish of our leftist chums on this place to exonerate Russia of any wrongdoing at all, and it has had the foul taint of anti-Americanism about it.
94 - 2.25% next year, can’t wait for that to not happen!
making economic assertions based on politics rather than economic data is annoying as well as stupidly wrong. 78. and 97. are illustrations of that
96
I wonder how many Americans will be that keen on the thought of their country, already embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan( With Iran on the horizon) becoming involved in the Balkan and Caucusus nightmare.
I don’t think its anti-Americanism, (My grandmother came from Baltimore) to point out it may not be a wise thing to provoke the, ‘Bear’ Georgia did, look what happened.
The Pentagon must be distraught, ‘So Mr President, what is it, what is our priority, is it the War on Terror or are we back to the Evil Empire, ‘cos we can’t do both’
“Whom do you consider a neoconservative?”
You want names? Maybe we could have a show trial.
73. Morus, I agree with everything you say here. The relativism which opponents of Bush indulge in is frighteningly extreme. It’s not enough to disagree with policy, the ‘neo-cons’ are painted as some source of evil which is then considered to disallow any claim to moral superiority. I wonder if it is linked to the growing popularity of conspiracy theories and Dan Brown style nonsense. How else to explain this common pattern of thought:
The imbecilic Bush (foolish Christian prince) is being manipulated by the neo-cons (Jews) who claim to want to spread democracy (create the pradise on earth the Jews wish to forge) but actually just want to get the oil (gold) which they and their chums want to hoard for themselves and to get strategic dominance (control the world), to do this they are willing to sacrifice the lives of our sons (shed the blood of Christians). Given this nefarious set-up, who can blame Saddam, Mahmood ‘the holocaust is a hoax’ Ahmedinidjad, Russia, China, al-Qaeda (Hitler) or anyone else, from doing terrible things?
The assumption - for that is all it is - that the Bush regime is dishonest in saying that it believed Iraq was a threat to national security and the war was a part of a strategy to destroy the power base of terrorists who had repeatedly attacked the US for decades is a matter of faith for some. There is no evidence for it. It is a conspiracy theory. It is perfectly rational to disagree with the Bush administration’s policies, but it is not rational to believe the above chain of statements because they are all conspiracy theories with no documentation, no supporting evidence and consequently cannot be disproved.
98. I agree..as you seem to feel so strongly about it perhaps you should try harder to get that message through to Darling and Brown as currently the tractor stats spewing from the Treasury and Number 10 have little basis in reality and seem to be much more about protecting our celtic chums bums..
@100:
It’s just that I have a sneaking suspicion that the only people who use the term “neocon” are those that would’d be able to recognize one if they found one in their fridge.
95: I believe Sontag’s point was not historical cause and effect, but rather the distressing and depressing observation that Communism had been responsible for as much (if not more) genocidal destruction as Fascism — but all the while had the gall to claim that this was in the name of building a better world. The phrase she used was “Fascism with a human face.”
Then of course you have NeoConservatism — aka, “Why it is necessary, indeed desirable, to destroy freedom in order to save it.” Of course, I should have put ‘freedom’ in quotes back there because I’m not sure NeoConservatives’ conception of it — eroding Habeas Corpus, legalised torture, executive and corporate power unfettered by the rule of law, indulging fundamentalist-Christian concerns for political gain — has anything to do with the liberal-democratic tradition.
MOrus - I don’t think there’s any question in who would be preferable, the US or Russia, as a single world leader but the nature of how the US uses that power, against who and why is up for grabs and is a real concern given how this was done in Iraq.
That it is similar people looking to do this in the Caucasus (I see many of them as neo-cons, still pulling the White House strings) should give us pause.
This is why the US election is so, so important. There are options that others believe are better for the west and for the world.
“The assumption - for that is all it is - that the Bush regime is dishonest in saying that it believed Iraq was a threat to national security and the war was a part of a strategy to destroy the power base of terrorists who had repeatedly attacked the US for decades is a matter of faith for some.”
Saddam was not a threat to the US and he had nothing to do with al-Qaida or 9/11.
103 - When I was doing my Master’s degree, we did a short sub-module on Leo Strauss and the Chicago School.
My tutor was overt about universities (seminaries of liberalism that they are) actively refusing to hire anyone who might be a Straussian - ’shoot as soon as you see the whites of their eyes’ was his line.
We actually caught a live one - he came to give a talk on Hobbes, but there were some throw-away lines that were like a dog whistle to those of us who had been reading Strauss, and when we cornered him over the post-lecture pint, we forced a confession. We thought about putting him in a cage, but eventually we let him go free…
And furthermore, thomas, I’ll thank you not to lump me in with any anti-Semitic idiots.
@104:
Will you list a few of these Neocons/Illuminati/Jews whom you consider to behind the sinister conspiracy to enslave mankind you’ve just outlined?
102. i am sure that privately they must be working off more realistic projections - but public pessimism “doesn’t do”
105 - It’s a fair point to criticise American actions overseas, and I do it myself. I just don’t like some of the reletivism.
For all its faults, and ours, the UK and US are still legitimate democracies, that prioritise human rights, stability, and all that jazz. I am no adherent of Carl Schmidt, but the concept of ‘friendship’ is perhaps the most important in politics - who are our friends and who are not?
I don’t feel uncomfortable criticising the US on a lot of things, but my fundamental position is that I will side with the democracies when they come into conflict with the despotic nations. I don’t feel any need to be neutral in my allegiances - that relativism binds our hands (relativism being the curse of Liberalism), when the hands of less savoury powers are not so bound.
106.108. I am making the point that the pattern of the conspiracy theory is the same as the pattern of the most popular conspiracy theory of all time. I’m not accusing you of anti-semitism.
The question of whether Saddam was a threat is not the same as the question of whether the administration thought so.
However, he was linked to al-Qaeda as well as to Hamas and other terrorist groups, which in itself made him a threat to US security.
96 - Martin, you seem to be trying to deny the existence of neoconservatism over the past few days, why? It’s like trying to say the earth is flat, they exist, they have, and still hold, much power in the US. When foreign affairs come to the fore then their ideas come to the fore.
Here’s one of the main names and I thought my flagging it up in recent days should have made it obvious - Scheunemann.
One of the signatories to the Project of the New American Century, main cheerleader in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, lobbyist for Georgia, McCain’s chief foreign policy advisor. These are not conspiracy theories they are the facts of US foreign policy.
You may know that focus of these people has extended from Islamism to Russia and China in recent times. Given their ineptitude in Iraq then I wouldn’t trust them to do anything and less combuctible people are needed at the top.
101 - They aren’t evil they are just inept and prone to head in the clouds theorising that falls apart when put in a real world context.
107, in my undergrad days, every single one of the history and politics lectures at my university were marxists. Some were absolute loon marxists, and some more moderate…
107. Further, my late father in law studied at the Chicago school, in the 1950s (one of the few black men on the campus), it must have had a big impact on him, as he became a professor of economics..
108 - That they think people’s views about ineptitude are instead an anti-semitic conspiracy is beyond parody. That they are so off beam makes you realise how Iraq went so badly and how, let loose, they would cock up the caucasus and endanger Georgia and a much wider area.
With an amount of neoconservative thought arising from one time socialists you can see the parallels with the same sort of foolish idealism that shatters when it has to confront the real world.
@113:
I’m not denying the existence of neoconservatism. Quite the opposite, in fact. I know what the word means, and when I use it I mean it as such. Thus I rarely use it, because the number of genuine neocons still influential in modern American politics is virtually zero.
However, when the new left use it, it’s either a vague and meaningless insult for somebody they disagree with, or more commonly, a codeword for Illuminati/Freemason/Lizard/Jew (or other shadowy conspirator), so they can talk about the sinister Jewish/whatever conspiracy that controls Washington DC and trying to enslave the world without their lefty chums having to acknowledge they’ve become an antisemitic conspiracy theorist.
It’s a very common pattern that has run through conspiracism for centuries.
112. yep, not much doubt Saddam was a threat to the US. his power to do anything much was overhyped, but aren’t most threats overhyped?
re 86 Does anyone have a First Folio to hand?
@117:
ukpaul, do you have friends who decry how much influence the “Israel Lobby” has?
I suspect you do.
118. Martin, you are perenially guilty of exactly the same category error when talking about “the left” (which by your definition appears to include a substantial portion of the UK Con party), and that was a nice demonstration.
re 89 not at all. Oil has recently fallen from its peak and is now I believe about $115. The drop in sterling means than petrol prices will soon be on their way up again.
There is no doubt that Russia wants Revenge against the US and certain countries of the EU, not for the fall of communism, ( a dreadful system of government ), but for helping to make the chaos which followed, even more chaotic.
The Russian people know the benefits of a market system, ( It’s not full blown capitalism ), and do not want a return of the commissars. But they do want to see Russia holding it’s head high in the world. They remember when western leaders came to Moscow to take the piss of an often drunken Yeltsin, who was amenable to taking more than the odd bribe.
Russian gangsters and con-men, often with western business backing, over-night became the Oligarchs that were really the only government for a time; making partnerships with western conglomerates that would take vast amounts of profits from the country.
True, there was a period of heady freedom where everybody could inform on everyone else, about whom did what to who under the old regime. Under this freedom works of art and other more valuable things were exported to the west.
I could go on and on, but the brief account above does show that the Russians have built up a huge resentment towards the west, and to the US in particular.
I do not condone Russian actions in Georgia but I can understand them.
118 Damn, was just going to say much the same - Neoconservative has become meaningless as its original usage to denote ex-liberals (US meaning) who had adopted positions viewed as right wing (generally in foreign affairs being active interventionists) has been lost and its used as a slur against anyone not accepting the liberal left world view.
re 98 what’s politics got to do with it? You would assert that oil was recently $150 and the pound $2. The price of oil in dollars has fallen, the price in pounds is going up.
118. I think it’s well established that PNAC was the centre of the neoconservative movement, and its reasonable to conclude anyone closely connected with it is a neocon.
@122:
I’m talking specifically about the cretinoleft. That significant portion of the left that has actively embraced conspiracism, anti-Americanism, anti-semitism and far right Islamism as part of their new liberation theology.
I recognise that there is a small core of sensible lefties who refuse to have nothing to do with such unpleasantness, but they are (a) a minority and (b) dwindling.
120 http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ShaJCF.html
118 - There is also a difference between neoconservatives and neoconservative ideas. Whilst the former are a dwindling bunch the latter are still very much with us.
Kagan, John Bolton (and his moustache) etc. etc. are hardly uninfluential in any case.
123. oil has indeed fallen from its peak (far more than any actual drop in sterling seen so far). both may and may not rise again soon.
if and when cable hits $1.50, oil will not be at $115.
118. Agree with every word you say.
101. Either the Bush administration invaded Iraq for reasons other than the WMD threat, or they were shockingly simple-minded and faith based in a mission, regardless of evidence.
Seeing that many of the architects of the war are extremely intelligent man, and that they had written about their desire for the US’s “full spectrum dominance” of a “new American empire” quite publicly, and in such writings also argued it was crucial to secure access to oil regions in the Middle East and central Asia, if necessary by military force, I tend to believe the former.
121 - The Israel lobby *is* one with disproportionate influence. Again, that’s not a conspiracy it is a fact of life.
If you dare to misrepresent that and yoke it to anti-semitism you are going to start a massive argument - I wouldn’t go there if I was you.
126. why not look at some real figures, instead of inventing exchange rates until our preferred scenario of hyperinflation appears to be reality.
oil was $150 at close to $2 - £75 a barrel.
oil is now about $115 at $1.85 - that’s £62 a barrel.
69. Speaking from the World Centre for Selfishness that is my hotel room in Bangkok, a fall in the pound versus the dollar is quite good news for me: I’m due a large-ish slice of dollars in the next coupla months.
Every 1 cent the pound falls makes me £500-£1000 I reckon, not huge, but pleasant. So I’ve made £5k this week.
More important is the pound euro rate. If the pound plummets against the euro I could make tons; if, disastrously, the euro tanks versus the quid, I’m into big losses. Ugh.
What do you think’s gonna happen to the euro? I am pleased to note, by the by, that the baht has fallen by a good 5-10% in the last coupla months, even against the feeble quid.
@127:
Nope, fraid not. The PNAC is about thirty years too late to be the centre of neoconservatism.
The PNAC (in reality just one more think tank, no more, but having many Jewish thinkers automatically makes it suspicious) became one more convenient nexus for conspiracism to centre on.
If it were not PNAC, it’d be the Council for Foreign Affairs, the Bilderberg Group, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs or AIPAC.
The new left don’t *need* PNAC as a base for fomenting their conspiracy theories, but it was just so damn convenient with its several Jewish founders and closeness to the VP.
More problems for Labour’s ID card scheme:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/aug/15/idcards
Guess old folks will just have to go without benefits or healthcare if their wrinkly fingertips don’t scan correctly! Will any spin from the likes of Palmer or Gabble be forthcoming?
134. What few people appreciate is that the bulk of the Israeli lobby is actually millenialist Christians, rather than Jews.
@134:
Thanks, Ukpaul. I think you may have just confirmed what many have spent the last few days suspecting.
128. so this conspiracy, taking in most of “the left”, is coming to get you is it?
most of the perpetrators would never admit to being part of it, of course, or in fact do anything to give away their involvement, presumably - and that is the cunning part. they behave, to all intents and purposes, as though there is no conspiracy - only you know, and must surely be at risk of your life.
124. Unfortunately, all the points you make about Russia make the compaisons with Weimar Germany look arguable. Russian nationalism is resurgent. It is also a paranoid country. While I was there some Welsh male pole-dancer was arrested for damaging cars and accused of being a British spy sent to cause chaos in the country. Funny, but also worrying. This kind of thing passes for news over there. By and large, Russians don’t trust the news they get, but it is the news they get. Fears of foreign attempts to subvert Russia and destroy it as a state are being used by the regime of ex-KGB to firm up support for its idea of national greatness.
134. Let’s put into perspective; there is an Israel lobby, but most influentual,( i.e. left-liberal), jews are against it. Opposed to that there are umpteen pro arab lobbies, including BIG OIL to counter the Israelis.
101
Any suggestion that the war on Iraq was based on oil is of course a conspiracy and only lunatics such as teh following belive it..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/02/john-mccain-admits-iraq-war-was-over-oil/
[136] - Sterling appears to be currently caught in the middle of the Euro sliding against the Dollar, so it is getting stronger against the Euro whilst weakening against the Dollar.
This appears to be your perfect scenario, lucky you.
136. me too! although not for a while. finally gained the confidence to bet on this market last week, so double the profits.
i don’t think the euro is going to get much stronger before falling back - hedge your bets
@141:
There’s no conspiracy, Ed, because most lefties are now no longer feeling the need to be circumspect about their onspiracism, anti-Americanism, anti-semitism and far right Islamism.
Though, of course, they always say they’re “anti-zionist” and “anti-Israel Lobby” instead, as if such coded references are so subtle and clever no foolish Jew will ever know what it actually means.
142. You may be well right that there is some paranoia in the Russian leadership, was it ever thus, but this only add’s to their fear of encirclement.
@148:
Russia could do with looking at a map from time to time. Maybe then it would feel less paranoid.
re 131. 4 weeks ago oil was $144 or £71.64. Now it’s $113.50 or £60.70. So a 21% drop in dollars is only a 15% drop in pounds. The price in pounds over the last week has been going up.
137. Now you’re claiming things that are not so. There’s a difference between a hawkish mentality and neoconservatism*. The latter was very much a response to the end of the Cold War, and how America had a moral right, or even duty, to cement “full spectrum dominance” over the globe. PNAC was the first group to truly voice that opinion, although others have come round (CSP, AEI come to mind). Some of the other groups you suggest as neocon are ridiculous though: CFR is a very balance bipartisan outfit, The Bilderberg is internationalist by its nature, Brookings was historically centre-left, etc.
*I’m talking about neoconservatism in its modern sense, rather than the Cold War version which was a left wing thing about not allying with autocracies.
148. So we should indulge their paranoia? Like we did Hitler’s?
[147] - Most leftists I know see themselves as standing in solidarity with Jews who are opposed to Zionism. Quite how that makes them anti-Semitic I don’t know.
Criticism of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians is no more anti-Semitism than criticism of the Bush administration is anti-Americanism.
147. what you are saying doesn’t even make sense. the only conspiracy theory here is your idea that everyone privately holds unpleasant or extreme views just because they aren’t as far to the right as you are.
I have a Democratic
@151:
I’m saying that, in its modern sense, neoconservative doesn’t really mean anything. At best it means “somebody I disagree with” and at worst it means “Illuminatus/Freemason/Jew”.
Reread this thread to see how it’s been used by various posters upthread. One of the two definitions seems to fit in every case.
137 - Why are denying neoconservatives their own self identification? A little Stalinist don’t you think?
@155:
What conspiracy am I suggesting? All I’m saying is that most of the new left are anti-American, anti-semitic, conspiracists that have embraced far right Islamism.
Far from being a conspiracy, these tendencies are now routinely exercised in public by lefties everywhere. A quick glance upthread shows that.
sorry — I have a Democratic, Jewish friend in New York who’s as supportive of a separate Palestinian state as he is opposed to Bush. What a self-loathing traitor to his country he must be!
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
140 - Oh dear, you really do want a fight don’t you, I thought I might have a quiet day today.
So you think that anti-semitism equals criticising Israel then?
Go on, argue your point rather than sniping pathetically.
136 - ‘feeble quid’ has a very pleasant ring to it. Like ‘cellar door’.
I used to be anti-Zionist (because I believed states should be completelt secular and not even recognise ethnicity or culture), but was never anti-Semitic.
I am now neither.Off to lunch.
@158:
I don’t doubt that PNAC may have attempted to redefine neoconservatism. Unfortubnately, the anti-semitic/conspiracist meaning is the one that became dominant, and is the one routinely used in left wing discourse.
73 — Excellent post, mista Morus. Refreshing as coconut water under a sunny sky!
——–
Nobody can understand the political glory of the American Supremacy in the world without first having been outraged by it!
Nobody on the Right, I think, has not been first a bit disgusted by the arrogance and the Pax Americana, and the bloody effect of any manifestation of a strong sovereign power.
This first suspicion or disgust can be retroactively seen as a liberating process, a healthy prelude to the understanding of Sovereignty, of the importance of BORDERS and TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY.
Relativism is actually a common heresy — or ideological disease — for there seems to be dark secret links between nihilism and an impuslive aversion toward the US massive Political Sovereignty over the globe:
Remove that supremacy of America from the actual geopolitical balance of power and of terror, and State political power turns into a violent exciting device, a machine intoxicating both men and societies.
***
Nothing that we know and love would survives intact to the loss of American Supremacy in the political geosphere.
153 Timothy ” Most leftists I know see themselves as standing in solidarity with Jews who are opposed to Zionism.”
That doesn’t sound quite so much a sure-fire anti-semetic-free zone if you restate it as:
most leftists you know oppose zionism and are supported in this by some Jews”.
157. if you had ever used the term “lefty” or “the left” to mean someone you agree with, or taken their actual views into account when using this term, or subsequently managed to refrain from some sort of slur, then your view would have more credibility.
157. I think I could give a definition that most people on here using the term would accept:
Neoconservatism is the belief that America, as the most benevolent superpower in history, has a moral duty to have complete dominance over the globe, and thus is morally justified to take whatever steps are needed to secure and cement that status.
159
You cannot be serious.
“Most of the new left are conspiracists”
In one sentence you destroy your own credibility by a sweeping unsubstantiable generalisation…
Stalin would be proud ot that
168 — Exactly. The internationalist version of manifest destiny, and just as dangerous.
Extremism even in the defence of liberty *is* a vice.
159. if you had a bit of circumstantial evidence or speculation to back up this statement, it would be a conspiracy. as it is, maybe you’re right - it doesn’t quite deserve ‘conspiracy’ status.
145. No, I need the pound to fall against the dollar AND the euro (the vast bulk of my earnings as TOM KNOX are denominated in euros or dollars).
At the same time, I need property prices to continue crashing in London, while simultaneously the pound makes a singular, bizarre and dramatic rise against just one currency: the Thai baht.
That’s not too much to ask, is it? Come on central bankers of the world! Put some beef into it!
@168:
I did say “new left”. It’s practically a circular definition, because I’m taking ‘new left’ to be that large subset of the left that behaves as such.
OT: Nils Olav II, resident of Edinburgh, has been knighted by Norway.
Sir Nils, a penguin who lives in the zoo, rose through the ranks to become commander-in-chief of the Norwegian King’s Guard.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7562773.stm
149
Just because your paranoid, doesn’t mean the bastards ‘Aren’t’ out to get you!!
If we’d lost 25,000,000 in the last war, wonder how paranoid we’d be?
@170:
Stop the war coalition. Respect. Two thirds of all posts on Comment is Free. Lefties on this thread.
These days, Ed, it’s hard to stop the left from doing it.
[165] - I don’t doubt that there are some anti-Semites who obscure their poisonous beliefs in the less offensive sounding anti-Zionism, but the pretence by some that there is a one-to-one relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is both massively wrong and deeply offensive.
161 - Actually, given your quite spectacular self-immolation on this thread I think that any further fuel on your pyre is quite unnecessaey, so I will retreat.
136. Sean, though no expert, I think the other posters are right that since the Eurozone is in as much trouble as the UK, as AEP is constantly reminding his Telegraph readers, they’ll probably both fall in line versus the USD and therefore not move that much relative to each other.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/08/15/cneuro115.xml
Don’t think I have much to add to the constant neo-con discussions on this site at present, so I’ll take a break until someone actually wants to talk about betting for once.
BTW can someone just update me on the subject and sensibility of this thread in two sentences?
I glimpsed the words “conspiracy”, “Zionist,”, “neo-Con” and “bilderberg” and my eyes just sort of glazed over. What are you all banging on about? Anything interesting? Or should I just ignore it and have my first G&T, as the sun sets over the Bang-cockney Coyote Bar?
175. Martin, you don’t know any lefties. that much is painfully obvious.
@167:
That’s the cretinoleft conspiracist definition of neoconservatism I’m talking about, yes.
Essentially there’s a shadowy conspiracy of neocons/Jews/illuminati/Lizards/Templars/whatever seeking to enslave mankind.
We’ve been seeing the same self-delusion from the left for centuries. It goes in waves with them.
@180:
I no fewer than I used to, because most people grow out of it. The ones that remain of the left by their early thirties are not people I’d want to devote social time to.
The ones I do know are harmless enough until they start attempting to form opinions.
148. I don’t think the leadership is particularly paranoid, I think that’s what they tell their people. I think the leadership thinks the West is weak because it is tied to international laws. Russians think you’re an idiot if you play by the rules. They want to get what they can for their country and it suits them to play on fears of western interference. It was ever thus in Russia. The revolution was preceded by a ‘pogrom’ against Germans - it was believed that the royal family were German agents - while the anti-semitic nature of the Stalinist purges are well known. Building up distrust and resentment of foreigners is a tactic of certain types of regime.
167 — I’d agree with that, with only a minor modification:
Neoconservatism is the belief that America, as the most benevolent superpower in history, has a moral duty to have complete dominance over the globe, and thus is morally justified to take whatever steps are needed to secure and cement that status [to the extent that those steps are confined into moral frontiers fixed by the ethics of judeo-christianity].
Sean, although the combination at any given time is unlikely, some careful horsetrading at the right times could very easily see you “all green”. just prioritise which transactions are really important to you (i.e. contract money coming in vs. better holiday money vs. affordable housing).
consider spread betting on the currency rates or buying futures contracts to “hedge” against outcomes you can’t afford.
174. They might not have lost 25,000,000 if they had started their war against fascism in 1939, like we did.
In the case of Hitler (and the Japanese militarists) in the 1920s, one could say that the “conspiracy to enslave mankind” came pretty damn close to succeeding.
@179:
Just saying that most of the new left are conspiracist anti-semites.
Nothing controversial.
184 — the problem, Philippe, is that the NeoCons themselves don’t agree with your “minor modification”!
OBAMA/McCAIN — WIN PERCENTAGE
intrade (last trade): 60.4 / 36.7 %
betfair (last trade): 65.79 / 30.37 %
538.com (e-projection): 59.5 / 40.5 %
I’m not sure legalising torture is consistent with Judeo-Christian ethics — but then again, it *did* take Christianity over 1700 years to realise that here might be something wrong with slavery.
Is the divine right of kings consistent with Judeo-Christian ethics as well?
186. they could have lost a lot more, who knows
@187:
It’s worth bearing in mind that Adolf Hitler was driven by a belief in conspiracies rather similar to the ones expounded by PBC denizens upthread.
Of course, he said “freemason” rather than “neocon” but the core ideas were the same.
185. Ta. That sounds like excellent advice, if only I knew what spread betting was, or how futures contracts work, or what hedging really means. Truth be told, I’m not even sure how interest rates work. Seriously.
I used to be quite good at maths at school - I was in the advanced maths set and all that. And then I did Economics A Level, and was quite good at that too, but when it was all finished I decided I never wanted to think about such boring shit ever ever EVER again, and this has had something of a deleterious affect on my financial acumen.
For a long time this deliberate stupidity didn’t matter. I was totally skint (and happy! sort of!). But now I am potentially gonna be quite well off and I need to know what to do with the dosh and it irks me. Cause I find it boring thinking about it, but I know I should think about it.
It’s so much easier dealing with the taxman when you have no income to tax. Indeed I almost wish I was skint again. ALMOST. Guess I better hire a financial advisor.
The one sensible thing I do intend to do is buy London property at the bottom of the market. I’m thinking maybe 18 months from now…
But thanks for the advice. Sincerely.
Perhaps just as dangerous as seeing conspiracies everywhere is the belief that, throughout history, conspiracies have not existed.
Re Tom Knox’s earnings: Euro falls as Eurozone faces recession. All Gordon Brown’s fault, I’ll be bound.
167. I think it’s a bit more complex than that, the definition I tend to use is that it is a synthesis of the realist and idealist approaches to international relations:
NeoConservatism:
The primary purpose of the nation state in the international sphere is to promote it’s own internal ideology. However all nation states exist in a state of anarchy where might makes right. Liberal Democracies do not fight with each other. Therefore the American foreign policy goal is to spread democracy and capitalism through the use of unilateral superior force.
New thread, please.
@195:
Perhaps, or then again, perhaps rather less dangerous. Cos we have Hanlon’s Razor and Occam’s Razor on our side. We win.
194. sorry, forgot you don’t come on pb.com for the betting!
if you are just happy to be getting loads of dosh, don’t have any particular spending commitments, and aren’t interested in the markets, i have some even better advice - don’t worry about any of it, just wait for the money to roll in. none of these market moves make that big a difference either way (not as much difference as writing a good rather than crap next novel anyway).
as for buying housing “at the bottom”, forget it, predicting the bottom is basically impossible (or everyone would be doing it). just satisfy yourself that any crash is good for you (affordability) and any price rises are good for you (confidence in the market).
188. If it helps to smooth things over, I do think the Iraq War was intellectually driven by ex-communist lefties, many of them Jewish, who became “neo-Conservatives” (by definition).
I also think, though they would deny it, that many of these neo-con Jews saw the Iraq War as a means of securing Israel’s future, by pacifying and democratising Araby (and, coincidentally, by getting rid of a dangerous, powerful and beilligerent tyrant who hated Israel).
The proof that Jews do not run the world (even if they do greatly influence US foreign policy - and they surely DO) - is that this neo-con/Jewish plan turned into a disaster, which has made Israel less secure than before, and has left America, Israel’s great ally, very considerably weakened.
A rich irony.
G — No way.
The “primary purpose of the nation state in the international sphere” is to grow more powerful.
That’s the basis of the Reason of State.
And this growth is virtually illimited and indefintie — as opposed to interna growth of sovereign power, which should be checked by the Law and the free market.
201. to achieve any power or influence in the US as an ex-communist is probably quite tough?
@201:
Absolutely. To put it another way: if there is a sinister Jewish conspiracy to enslave the world, they’re rubbish at it.
203. If you look at the intellectual background of influential neo-cons, quite a few of them started out on the left. Even the far left.
202 - In other words ‘permanent war’.
201 - Exactly Sean, they are not evil, they are just rubbish.
@205:
In a gun-toting, martial nation like the Republic of Jesusland, being a chickenhawk is perhaps the only way you can prove to your fellow Americans that your cullions have grown back. So that’s pretty understandable.
I know there’s some internet law against quoting Wikipedia, but f*** it, the law doesn’t apply in Thailand (I just checked).
So here’s Wiki on the origins of neo-conservatism in leftwing thought. I think it’s a pretty good article, and seems accurate, and I’ve been reading around this subject for a while. Others may differ, of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative
Example paragraph:
“New” conservatives initially approached [their] view from the political left. The forerunners of neoconservatism were often liberals or socialists who strongly supported the Allied cause in World War II, and who were influenced by the Great Depression-era ideas of the New Deal, trade unionism, and Trotskyism, particularly those who followed the political ideas of Max Shachtman. A number of future neoconservatives, such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, were Shachtmanites in their youth; some were later involved with Social Democrats USA.”
And
“Initially, the neoconservatives were less concerned with foreign policy than with domestic policy. Irving Kristol’s journal, The Public Interest, focused on ways that government planning in the liberal state had produced unintended harmful consequences. Norman Podhoretz’s magazine Commentary, formerly a journal of the liberal left, had more of a cultural focus, criticizing excesses in the movements for black equality and women’s rights, and in the academic left. Through the 1950s and early 1960s the future neoconservatives had been socialists or liberals strongly sup
portive of the American Civil Rights Movement, integration, and Martin Luther King, Jr..”
Apologies for text-wodges, and apologies if this has been discussed before in the thread I can’t be arsed to read.
186
Of course the then British Government refused to explore the possibility of an alliance with the Soviet Union, as the French government wanted to.
The war dead are the one thing that unites all Russians, and the fear of being encircled by potentially hostile forces, will always power Russian foreign policy.
In the same way, that the fear of any single power dominating Europe inspired British Foreign policy in 19th and 20th centuries.
202. In the realist interpretation. If you read Francis Fukuyama’s End Of History he criticises and rejects this viewpoint. Instead arguing that peace, extending America’s influence and a balance of power can come to exist through establishing a universal state of capitalist democracy. Therefore the aim of American foreign policy should be to establish democracy and capitalism.
What sort of intellectual, Jewish or otherwise, thought Saddam posed a threat to Israel?
As to why Iraq was invaded, I imagine different actors had different motives: securing oil, spreading democracy, perhaps even revenge on the tyrant who tried to kill Bush’s father. Clearly Britain’s motives were different again.
seanT don’t be tempted to play the money markets, it is a mug’s game unless you are expert and even they fall flat on their faces now and then as some of the more spectacular bank crashes testify. If playing with funny money is such a sure thing why are so many banks on the brink today.
What you might lose after stuffing your money into a high yield savings account in the currency in which you receive the royalties might leave you with a loss or it might not.
But the loss over a couple of years could be small compared to a few minutes of poor gambling on the exchanges. I speak as one with scars.
I now stick to my real purpose and although I have a similar problem with the Euro and the Pound I resist the temptation to try to find a quick way out. My policy now is to stick it out and look for an opportunity to cover my position through the business I know. In your case this is probably through the contracts you agent negotiates for you.
Some would say this is rather limp and wet and not exploiting the market mechanisms but I say I shall live in comfort if not luxury. The market gamblers could be in yachts at Monte but equally they could be in shreds in the Priory.
@209:
I always think of Sir Humphrey’s remark that Britain’s primary goal has always been a disunited Europe at any cost.
@210:
Isn’t that the theoretical aim of all Western states’ foreign policies (until the dreadful moment realpolitik intervenes)?
211. Er, Israeli jets had to bomb Saddam’s nascent nuclear reactor, at Osirak, long before the Iraq War - or had you forgotten?
Clearly some Jews thought Saddam was a threat. And they were right. He was.
204 one of us, one of us
212. it is certainly a risky business. what a lot of people forget is that success is measured in very small percentages. very successful traders are very successful not by winning every bet at long odds, but by winning small fractions of very large amounts indeed.
‘amateur investing’ is never going to earn anyone a decent living.
213. Not until recently. Kissinger and Reagen (and Thatcher?) were relentlessly realist, they had no interest in whether a country was democratic only on whether they were friendly to American interests.
“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” — Henry Kissinger
Who gives a monkeys about the definition of neocon - surely it is just another stereotype to shoehorn people into.
And as for conspiracy theories the truth is far more stranger yet mundane than we all expect. Most things happen because a middle manager screwed things up somewhere.
Next thing we’ll have RodCrosby banging on about how the ‘Labour always worse than you think’ theory is crap as it is always in margin of error - funny how it is always at the top end of the right side of the margin of error.
My theory is that you always project your pre-existing belief onto any situation, and see it from that point of view. So someone who has lived in Russia, like myself, will see things in a different light to someone who gets their information from the news here.
I think the same theory applies to political parties for the majority of non-PB types. They look at the parties and see who they empathise with more. I really think the family man, young children, easy charm of David Cameron has improved the tories rather than any real policy. In the same way, even though Charles Kennedy ‘liked a drink’ we could all see ourselves going out for a couple of pints with him. Since then Ming and Clegg just seem dull, Clegg in particular.
How does this feed through to Labour leadership and possible success afterwards. Well not good for Brown, or Milliband, or Harman. Alan Johnson may be OK. Others a bit anonymous, but the possibility that exposure might help.
Can anyone else link all the issues of the morning into one post?
216. That sounds like the sort of comments EU officials and Europhiles routinely make, doesn’t it?
214. yes i don’t think you need to be Jewish or an intellectual to see that having a crazy dictator next door who lists his interests as developing WMDs, war with neighbouring countries, and anti-semitism is not great news.
Morus, I agree with you that the real or supposed flaws in US policy (or indeed British policy) shouldn’t mean we can’t criticise Russian policy. But what prompts your belief that “Russia is overthrowing a democratically elected leader on its borders”? It’s generally conceded that they could have taken Tblisi and evicted the government if they wanted to, and when it was unclear I said here that we should impose sanctions if they did. But they didn’t, and their actions seem consistent with simply wanting to be assertive and supportive of the (relatively rare!) care of local populations who want to be allied to them.
No parallels are exact, but one that occurs to me is Ireland - if Eire had at some point invaded Ulster, on the basis of historical unity, and the majority of local people had asked us to help, it would have been bizarre if we hadn’t responded.
So long the Russians essentially don’t do more than hold the enclaves, then it seems to me fairly normal power politics. Yes, there’s clearly an unpleasant subtext of ‘don’t mess with us, neighbours’ and traditionally anti-Russian leaders like Kaczinski are understandably keen to get the US as a counterweight, but it doesn’t seem to me that one can make a case that they’re trying to overthrow the elected government. (The elected Georgian government may be doing a good job of overthrowing itself.)
212…i am sorry that you are scarred. markets are for those who have conquered their “greed and fear”. fixed interest is for the rest of the world.
223..should read 213.
The Saddam developing WMDs and nukes was ancient history by this time.
Thanks for all the financial info and wisdom. I think the advice to stay clear of money markets I don’t understand (i.e. all of them) is pretty sound.
If and when my cash arrives (inshallah) I reckon I’ll just shove it in a couple of savings accounts (possibly not Northern Rock) and then invest it in a flat, if I get the chance. Even if the property market continues to collapse, I will still need somewhere to live. So it shan’t be wasted.
Any residue can go on my daughter’s expensive and recently-acquired taste in organic cookies.
re 138 An Identity and Passport Service spokesman said the body disagreed with the expert assessment of the problem:
No surprise there then when the government ignores the advice of an expert body it sets up when it comes up with inconvenient advice.
226. regardless of house prices, markets etc., there are few things more satisfying than owning your own pad
BACK ON TOPIC
I would be astounded if, when there is the roll call on Obama v Clinton, ANY superdelegates voted for Hillary. I don’t think half the Hillary delegates will vote for her. The only people who will vote for her will be delegates who feel compelled, because they were selected to do so, and PUMAs (PUMA = Party Unity, My A**).
Obama will win it 80-20 or better, but it will still leave a nasty taste in the mouth. I wouldn’t have done it, and I think it allows the Clintons to make trouble by giving the chance for a ’show of residual force’.
Slightly more might vote for Hillary for VP, irrespective of who Obama chooses - maybe as much as 35% of delegates, but again, I cannot see them marshalling much of a movement.
All in all, I don’t think the roll call will be cathartic, and I don’t think it will help the Clintons, unless they want to destabilise Obama’s campaign with no benefit until he loses.
228 - long term, maybe. Short term, I can think of, oooh, dozens.
For Labour voters who want cheering up, see
http://www.vote-2007.co.uk/index.php?topic=2296.0
for last night’s only by-election. Labour gain. Tories 6th! Obviously a harbinger of the next General Election.
People might be interested to see how close some pro-Russia voices on here are to the official line of the Kremlin.
“Russians were told over breakfast yesterday what really happened in Georgia: the conflict in South Ossetia was part of a plot by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, to stop Barack Obama being elected president of the United States.
The line came on the main news of Vesti FM, a state radio station that — like the Government and much of Russia’s media — has reverted to the old habits of Soviet years, in which a sinister American hand was held to lie behind every conflict, especially those embarrassing to Moscow. Modern Russia may be plugged into the internet and the global marketplace but in the battle for world opinion the Kremlin is replaying the old black-and-white movie.”
I think the term ‘useful idiot’ came from Lenin didn’t it?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4535173.ece
Here’s the link.
222 - Fair point Nick - I’m still not resolved on where I stand on South Ossetia, though I have moved to being more and more concerned about Russia’s stance.
Fundamentally, my point was that, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of this conflict, I don’t buy into the idea that we (as Western, democratic, ‘liberals’) should be neutral when it comes to conflicts between our way of thinking and despotism/theocracy etc. It is the reletivism that bothers me, and for all the tub-thumping about the evils of neoconservatism, I would still prefer that to reletivism. We are (broadly speaking) liberal, capitalist, democrats. We do (generally) believe in sovereignty and human rights. That should be the foundation - we win nothing by claiming that we have no greater moral legitimacy than those who are inimically opposed to these things, a concession that the other side would never make.
Need a haircut. Back later.
232. Well of course some posters, like the one at 222. have plenty of experience in parroting the official Kremlin line. It’s like riding a bike you know, you never forget how to do it…
232 - Proof that the US are not involved in Georgian politics please.
The US have laid themselves wide open for this sort of thing by having allowed connections between government and lobbyists and so on. Intelligent governments don’t allow give the opposition that sort of ammunition. The US government, as we have said today, is not evil, it is just rubbish, its foreign policy cock ups being one of the more obvious ones to us.
231 Tories 12 votes! Genius. That’s worse than Labour does in the darkest parts of Surrey. When you get as low as 12 you are going to have to begin asking questions of friends and family!
It appears to be 12 more votes than we got last time!
Storming ahead!
226 seanT “I reckon I’ll just shove it in a couple of savings accounts (possibly not Northern Rock)”
Actually, Northern Rock may be the safest place to put it, since it’s effectively government guaranteed. Anywhere else, it’s guaranteed only up to 90% of the first £35K at present I believe, although there are plans to increase this. Also if the bank is not UK-domiciled it’s protected by the scheme of the foreign jurisdiction, which may be different and may not be so secure. (For example, Iceland’s banks are larger than Iceland’s GDP.)
(Normal disclaimer applies. I am not a financial adviser! Believe nothing I say!)
138,227 re ID Cards. 2010 — ID cards for school-leavers and a general election.
That could swing a few first-time voters, if only Cameron campaigns against the scheme, which is unlikely now David Davis has resigned from political life.
222-Weren’t the elections in Georgia “flawed”? I think I remember eeading about it somewhere.
Also, didn’t the great democrat Saakashvili resort to unleashing his riot squad on protestors?
I think Saakshvili may be more in the Mobutu image, “he’s a SOB but he’s our SOB”.
Looks like Gove is going all out to upset, ‘The Right’.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23533053-details/More+pupils+going+to+university+is+a+good+thing%2C+says+senior+Tory/article.do
Bet Heff, is dipping his pen into acid right know.
234 - about this claim for ‘greater moral legitimacy’. The Western powers would be in a much stronger position with regard to Russia now were it not for the fact that during the early to mid 90s Russia got a dose of what we told them were ‘liberal, capitalist and democratic’ policies and the result was a total and unmitigated disaster for the vast majority of Russians (life expectancy now is still lower than in 1990).
The argument that our values are better than those of dictators etc. only holds if we act according to the best of our principles when dealing with others. If we’d approached Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union with the same approach as the Americans did Western Germany after 1945, relations would now be a lot better.
What ever happened to David Davis?
241 John L “if only Cameron campaigns against [ID cards] which is unlikely now David Davis has resigned from political life.”
Why do you say that? Cameron has repeatedly and consistently made clear his opposition to ID cards.
re 245. A good question Jonathan. In retrospect what a stupid gesture. What has it achieved apart from confirm that the party was right not to have made him leader in 2005?
re 231. At least the Tory got two more than those who signed the nomination papers - unlike a Labour candidate in Surrey last year who could only garner 7 votes.
@243:
It doesn’t matter. Society has already adjuested to the reality of what Major did. Now employers know that having a degree is and and of itself not relevant, and now you will be judged by what subject you did and most importantly, where you did it.
246:
… and opposition to ID cards is official party policy:
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=campaigns.display.page&obj_id=134894
245 - David who?
249. Exactly - the market always reasserts itself.
244. Russia got oodles of money from the West in the 1990s - the problem was they stole or wasted it.
Or perhaps you meant we should have taken over much of the administration and garrisoned a huge armed force there, like we did in Germany after the war?
248. In the Elgin by-election, a candidate received just 1 vote, but in Scotland you only need a Proposer and Seconder to be nominated.
247 Indeed, I can only shudder to think that a DD Tory party would look like. DD’s big mistake was to go against Cameron and Osbourne. An utter fool.
246,250 re Tories against ID cards.
Conspiracy theory: David Davis was isolated on this issue in the Shadow Cabinet.
241 — Cameron has repeatedly spoken out against ID cards.
@256:
Truth: David Davis spoke for the majority of the Shadow Cabinet, Conservative Party members and his constituents.
Angela Merkel met with Medvedev in Sochi today. When can we expect Brown to put his diplomatic oar in?
258, ridiculous! The vote itself was proof of the deep and divisive splits the issues caused!
Oh, whoops, that was Labour. My mistake. A whole 1 Tory voted against the party line.
253 - I was thinking more of the comparison between the Marshall Plan and shock therapy, noting that countries which benefited from the Marshall Plan have been our allies ever since, whereas countries which ‘benefited’ from shock therapy hadn’t.
256. i doubt it.
ID cards is not as much of a ‘liberty’ issue as people make out. the best arguments against the scheme have to do with the interlinked factors of complexity, security and implementation. likewise the best arguments for it are to do with administration rather than crime reduction/terrorism
“The best arguments for it are to do with administration rather than crime reduction/terrorism.”
Hasn’t stopped Labour from shamelessly claiming they’d cut both.
I’m glad to see that Bush is enjoying the olympics:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EQc_hLHXONE/SJ2cTlOy-0I/AAAAAAAACHU/40-umH5XpwY/s1600-h/bush_bum.jpg
245. he is live on telly now, qualifying out of his heat in 1500m freestyle
265 If that were the case, DD would half way through refuse to swim with the other competitors and on a point of principle start doing the breaststroke in the diving pool. Crazy is as crazy does.
265, good for him!
Speaking of rare sightings, I saw a little of Ed Balls on the BBC news. Apparently the evil Tories are trying to turn him ruining the SATs for everybody in the country into a political issue. But have no fear! Heroic Superballs is focusing on getting on with the job.
Wonder where he learnt that exciting mantra from.
Kettle says Gordon should get Glenrothes out of the way as soon as he can. Looking at his argument I think he’s right.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/glenrothes.byelections
238 No surprise at all in that part of the World. My great-grandparents were famous for being the only inhabitants of Mountain Ash who voted Conservative in Fifties.
Back in those days of Sunday Closing, there were several Conservative clubs in the Welsh Valleys whose membership comfortably exceeded the Conservative vote.
266. !
ditching politics and concentrating on his swimming has changed him - he looks years younger.
Tories making big mistake
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rosa_prince/blog/2008/08/15/university_for_all_says_michael_gove
I really cannot agree with the gesture politics of this. What we really need in this country is an A-level system with a static comparitor so we can see who is actually bright. At the moment a genius and a hard-worker could both get an A. We could have mark and rank percentage supplied with an A level so you could have an A 85 60, which would mean you got an 85% average which was beaten by 40 per cent of people taking the exam. This would be useful both for employers and universities because an A-Level in sociology is surely not equivalent to an A-level in Physics (I studied neither).
We could also have differential fees for subjects at university which are required. So for those thinking about taking a degree in a subject like Maths, reduced fees would be an incentive to follow ‘required’ subjects.
The current arbitrary 50% target is gesture politics and does not consider what is best or have a strategy relating to skills required. If half the population had an arts degree would that be of benefit to the country.
271, I agree. I was at university only a few years ago doing a popular subject (psychology) and roughly half dropped out before the final exams in the third year.
All that’s happening is that a degree is being devalued. I also think you’re spot on with the idea of different fees for different subjects. Essential areas (medicine) and those which we’re lacking skilled people in (maths, chemistry etc) should have lower fees than golf course management.
Popular subjects where the job market is saturated with degree-holding persons (such as psychology) and useless, mad degrees (golf course management, David Beckham studies) should have higher fees.
271 Reading yesterday’s London Paper I saw a (to me) shocking development. They were advertising degree courses according to price and “saving money” by doing a degree in two years.
I am all for expanding access to higher education and even accept some financial component (if only for making people take a serious view of the commitment). But tabloid style adverts for cheap degrees are surely not a good thing nor what was intended. Sad.
268 - I disagree. Brown would be happiest if there was no byelection, ior if could be completely forgotten about.
Best he can do is issue the writ for November 6th (a Thursday) knowing that no political journalist in the world will bother covering it.
269 The only surprise is that there is now a Tory on RCT council albeit for a more ruralish bit. I doubt Labour will be getting out the Champagne just yet though. Their condition in Wales overall looks parlous. Look at the three big Cities. Ten years ago massive majorities and total control. In Cardiff they had eradicated the local Tories to the point they were on a par with Sheffield or other Cities and had just 1 councillor. Now they’re 3rd and have lost both Swansea and now Newport for the first time ever.
274 Best he can do is issue the writ for November 6th (a Thursday) knowing that no political journalist in the world will bother covering it. - On what basis.
276 Ahem. Can’t you guess!
New thread - How good are the predictive skills of politics dons?
272 - As long as we end this idiotic notion that people without degrees are inherently thick or intellectually sub-standard I will be happy. Far too many people see a degree as proof of extra intelligence not as it is proof of further study.
276. Come on?
@276.
Um. There’s another election that week, er, elsewhere.
281 Slaps head… I forgot when the first Tuesday in November was…..
82.”The Tories must then expect to be held to the same level of scrutiny, jibe and insult that they have hurled at other parties over the past couple of years.
As far as debates are concerned, pal, I’ll continue scrutinising and criticising and insulting the Tories in Government just as I have in Opposition. The only problem will be that if or when the Tories screw things up, we’ll all suffer.”
After following politics and watching the media coverage of the Conservatives for the over the last 15 years, that comment is beyond parody.
93.”There is no question that the Russians were planning this before the ‘provocation’ of Georgia attacking armed men operating within its own borders.”
The media coverage yesterday starkly showed how stage managed the Russian’s response was.
284 So? I bet the Americans have Contingency plans and forces for Taiwan…….
285.It rather goes against the narrative and media operation they are putting forward. The hearts and minds operation for those back home and throughout Europe.
re 282 technically the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
287 groan……