| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
14 Nov 2006 04:53:14 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Party like it's 2008 |
Party like it's 2008
Eric Alterman
November 13, 2006 10:07 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/eric_alterman/2006/11/alterman_1.html
Hillary Clinton's chances for the Democratic nomination were increased
this weekend. Tom Vilsack getting into the race hurts Edwards' since he
needed to win Iowa to emerge as the "un-Hillary" by New Hampshire.
(Clinton can only lose if there is a single, agreed-upon un-Hillary
relatively early in the process, and it's not going to be Kerry, Biden,
or Dodd, for sure, though it could conceivably be Evan Bayh, it's much
more likely to be John Edwards.)
Feingold's getting out leaves no clear pre-Iraq antiwar voice around
whom to rally, and takes some pressure off her there too. If Obama or
Gore get in the race then everything changes though, and either one
becomes the putative favorite, for now.
The smoking dragon
Cass Sunstein
November 13, 2006 10:42 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/cass_sunstein/2006/11/climate_change_ch=
ina_and_the_u.html
In the midst of the continuing discussions of the Stern Review and the
midterm elections, a closely related story is being neglected: China is
now projected to be the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases by
2009, surpassing the United States. This is a remarkable finding,
because even recent estimates had seen the United States as No 1, and
China as No 2 until as late as 2020.
For those who favor international controls on greenhouse gases, the
explosive emissions growth in China creates enormous challenges. The
United States has of course rejected the Kyoto Protocol, and at Kyoto,
China refused to accept any greenhouse gas emissions limits at all.
With Democrats in control of Congress, it is not unimaginable that the
US will impose limits of some kind within the next five years. But what
will China do? Its economic interest suggests that it might do nothing
at all. As China's economic growth becomes increasingly dependent on
fossil fuels, the costs of stabilizing its emissions are likely to be
very high, at least in the absence of some kind of technological
breakthrough.
Bush's Hispanic panic
James Crabtree
November 13, 2006 09:29 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_crabtree/2006/11/the_republican_h=
ispanic_crisis.html
The collapse in the Republican Hispanic vote is the single biggest
under-reported statistic in this election; but even if the newspapers
didn't give it much space, the president noticed. The announcement this
afternoon that Hispanic senator Mel Martinez is to head the Republican
National Committee gives the clearest possible signal that the
Republicans realize they have a Hispanic panic on their hands.
And they should be worried. Hispanic American voters are a volatile
swing vote. Their economic position suggests they would be democrats.
Their faith, family structure and values suggest they might be
republicans. Recognising this, the Bush administration made a concerted
effort during its first two terms to reach out. President Bush promoted
Hispanic leaders and engaged in Hispanic issues. He visited Latin
American countries. He ran adverts in Spanish. He aimed to convince
Hispanics that their natural home was with a Republican party that
believed in hard work, family values and religious faith.
Bake me a cake, Baker man
Michael Kinsley
November 13, 2006 09:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_kinsley/2006/11/kinsleys_column=
..html
If I told most people in Washington that there was something called the
Baker Commission, they could probably guess many of its members without
even knowing what it was about. Oh, there might be some quibbles: now
that Sandra Day O'Connor is available, is Madeleine Albright out of
luck? And is there really no one under the age of 60 who has attained a
sufficient level of self-importance to qualify for membership? This is
one torch that has not been passed to a new generation.
The Baker Commission - that's James Baker, of course - was appointed by
Congress to look into the situation in Iraq. It is expected to report
early next month, and is duly bouncing around and staffing up and
holding hearings and all the things that prestigious commissions do.
They're hearing from Tony Blair this week.
The spoils of war
James K Galbraith
November 13, 2006 08:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_k_galbraith/2006/11/implications.=
html
So far in history, only twice has popular democracy risen up to stop a
war. The first case was France's exit from Algeria from 1958 to 1962.
The second was the American exit from Vietnam from 1968 to 1973. By all
appearances, it could now happen for a third time. For the Democratic
victory on November 7 went beyond a triumph of one party. It was, in
addition, the abrupt return of an anti-war, anti-colonial,
anti-imperial perspective to our politics, and therefore to the global
equation.
This perspective isn't new. It has briefly dominated in Democratic
circles at least three times: in 1963, when John F Kennedy set the US
and the USSR on a course of conciliation through the test ban and other
measures, including a secret decision to withdraw from Vietnam; in
1968, when Lyndon Johnson negotiated a peace settlement in Paris; and
in 1972, when George McGovern called for America to "come home". It has
also surfaced under Republican power - when, for instance, Richard
Nixon went to China in 1972, and when Ronald Reagan met with Gorbachev
in Reykjavik in 1986.
Retracing the battle lines
Jake Bernstein
November 13, 2006 07:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jake_bernstein/2006/11/post_609.html
It's doubtful that vice-president ***** Cheney, sitting on election
night in his hunting cabin somewhere near Pierre, South Dakota,
savoured the irony. History is repeating itself. Back in 1974, Cheney
was deputy White House chief of staff in the administration of Gerald R
Ford. He and his mentor, the then White House chief of staff, Donald
Rumsfeld, watched helplessly as a Democratic wave swamped Republicans
in that year's midterm elections. Democrats picked up more than 40
seats, ushering in a historic reform of Congress. The battle lines were
set. The new Democratic Congress would spend the next three years
dismantling the imperial presidency constructed by Richard Nixon.
Fighting a resurgent Congress during Ford traumatised Cheney. For the
next 30 years, he worked to restore the power stripped from the
executive by the activist congresses of the 1970s. As vice-president he
has presided over an astounding power grab, as the Bush administration
has asserted its right to torture, spy on Americans, and classify all
manner of information. Cheney's willingness to ram through an
ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, best exemplified by an unprecedented
eight or more visits to CIA headquarters to pressure agency analysts,
was typical of his single-minded effort to mould the government to the
White House's command.
The last true believer
Martin Kettle
November 13, 2006 07:04 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2006/11/blair_wrong_to_th=
e_last.html
Those who attempt to depict Tony Blair's annual foreign policy speech
at the Guildhall tonight - and his video-linked conversation with the
US Congress's Iraq Study Group tomorrow - as marking a big change of
direction on Iraq and the Middle East are getting it completely wrong.
In fact my main conclusion from the two events is that they are likely
to add up to a serious failure by Downing Street to change direction
rather than any shift of policy.
What has actually changed in Iraq and in the broader Middle East
context in the past few months? Answer: the collapse of American
political willingness to remain in Iraq long term. The shape of the new
American policy on Iraq has not yet crystallised - and will not do so
for some weeks - but the main point is that America has now all but
abandoned any attempt to use Iraq as the key to unlock a modernised and
democratic new Middle East order. Instead the aim now is to get out of
Iraq with a minimum of further casualties and a maximum of dignity
intact within the shortest feasible time.
Away from the skirmish
Mark Vernon
November 13, 2006 06:11 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_vernon/2006/11/post_618.html
Religion is a fact of human existence and so, one way or another, of
political life. Everyone, therefore, benefits from an intelligent
approach to it - especially now, if society is changing by
"de-secularising". So the launch of Theos, the thinktank that will
campaign for the place of religion in public life, can be welcomed, but
welcomed cautiously. That the people behind Theos appear to be liberal,
neither beating the drum of social intolerance nor mirroring the
rhetoric of the militant atheists who oppose it, is encouraging. But
what will be important to watch is the nature of the relationship
between church and state, between public and private, for which the
thinktank campaigns. For Theos, so far, appears confused as to its
strategy.
The danger is that in the need to justify its existence and sustain
media attention, it positions itself as the opponent of campaigning
organisations such as the National Secular Society (and becomes
triumphalist as Madeleine Bunting fears). This will not deepen the
debate about the role of religion in society but merely perpetuate the
tit-for-tat that so often passes for debate at the moment.
We stand corrected
Dave Hill
November 13, 2006 05:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dave_hill/2006/11/post_619.html
Sometimes, I feel this terrible chill. It happened to me last on
Saturday evening, snug at home listening to Five Live's football
reports in the kitchen. Luton Town FC had lost at home to QPR. Their
manager, Mike Newell, believed his team was denied a penalty by referee
Andy D'Urso and his assistant Amy Rayner. It was she who provoked this
extraordinary speech:
"She should not be here. I know that sounds sexist, but I am sexist, so
I am not going to be anything other than that. We have a problem in
this country with political correctness, and bringing women into the
game is absolutely beyond belief. It is bad enough with the incapable
referees and linesmen we have, but if you start bringing in women, you
have big problems. This is Championship football. This is not park
football, so what are women doing here? It is tokenism for the
politically correct idiots."
Change is coming
Robert Fox
November 13, 2006 05:08 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_fox/2006/11/post_622.html
In many, many words and long sentences David Cox appears to argue for a
US-UK cut-and-run policy from Iraq. Not now but when John McCain is
elected the next President of the United States in 2008. He will not
have the political baggage of George Bush and Tony Blair, and by then
it will be plainer that it is today that there is no other way out of
the Iraq mess than disengage entirely.
If only it were so simple. If Mr Cox had read my words rather than
guess my mind he would realise that in the view of US and UK field
commanders decision cannot be postponed for another two years. Nor can
Iraq be declared to be what German chess masters call zugzwang - a
position from which any possible move invites disaster. The commanders
know that at the present tempo or operations, the equipment and
manpower will be exhausted by this time next year.
From MySpace to our space
Libby Brooks
November 13, 2006 04:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/libby_brooks/2006/11/post_621.html
It's a brilliant piece of subversion. The Mosquito alarm, which emits a
high-pitched frequency that can only be heard by the younger
generation, was developed to make public spaces like shopping centres
uncomfortable for youth. The technology takes advantage of presbycusis,
or age-related hearing loss, to blare an irritating noise that cannot
be heard by most people over the age of twenty. The idea is to render
certain areas intolerable to young people, while leaving them benign
for the rest of us.
It's been road-tested to great effect in Wales, but recently schools
there have discovered that their pupils have been tweaking the
technology to satisfy their own ends. Students have turned the
frequency into a ringtone, allowing them to answer phones in class free
from adult intervention. Now they can receive calls and texts during
lessons without the teacher noticing.
Into Africa
Jim Giles
November 13, 2006 03:45 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jim_giles/2006/11/jim_giles.html
Asked about the prospects for the climate change talks in Nairobi, a
British official said last week that there was minimal chance of
substantial progress. Instead, delegates will be sizing up others'
positions and listening, as he put it, to "mood music".
That sounds incredibly lax. You don't have to buy into some recent
apocalyptic press reports to accept the seriousness of the threat from
climate change. It's hugely unlikely, for example, that "most of the
surface of the globe will be rendered uninhabitable within the
lifetimes of most readers of this article". But it's mainly the
timetable that is wrong with that statement. It's still the case that
carbon emissions, if left unchecked, will eventually wreck the planet.
Painting a bleak picture
Sue Blackmore
November 13, 2006 02:51 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue_blackmore/2006/11/last_blog_from_ch=
ina.html
On our last day in China, I escaped the relentless sight-seeing and
wandered around the centre of the southern city of Guilin, stopping at
a street stall to look at some lovely cream pyjamas. I did my best to
check they really were silk, did some brutal bargaining and agreed to
buy two pairs for a total cost of about =A36.50.
The man I bought them from was the least pushy vendor I had met in
China and spoke excellent English, so we got chatting. I asked about
his single, extremely long, curved, thumbnail, and he explained that he
was a painter and sometimes used his nail as a brush. It was then that
I realised I didn't have any money and felt a bit of an idiot. But he
offered to take me to the nearest cash machine and so we set off.
Green is the new black
Open Thread
November 13, 2006 02:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2006/11/green_is_the_new_bl=
ack.html
Environmental campaigners claim that domestic wind turbines hardly
produce enough electricity to power a hairdryer and may do more harm
than good. Friends of the Earth expert Nick Rau said, "A wind turbine
on the roof is a glamorous statement. But cavity wall insulation may be
more effective and will probably pay for itself a lot quicker".
In built-up areas, domestic wind turbines, it is claimed, do little to
cut carbon emissions and end up simply annoying the neighbours. They
are most effective in Scotland and Northern England, and produce more
energy from an elevated position. Yet almost a quarter of buyers to
date have been homeowners in London.
A changing channel
Daoud Kuttab
November 13, 2006 12:54 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daoud_kuttab/2006/11/the_al_jazeera_rev=
olution_turn.html
When it first appeared, the new satellite channel broadcast from Qatar
reflected its own name. Al-Jazeera - Arabic for "the island" -
represented a haven of professional, independent, current affairs
programming in a sea of one-sided, government-controlled Arab media.
Until al-Jazeera's journalists, mostly BBC-trained, arrived on the
scene, the average Arab citizen's news television diet was nothing more
than protocol news, wire service video reflecting the latest in the
Palestinian conflict, and dramatic photos of earthquakes or wild fires.
Al-Jazeera not only provided live interviews and broadcasts from the
field, it introduced live debate to the Arab world. Its programme
al-Itijah al-Mu'akess ("the opposite direction") brought the sort of
verbal jousts that most of the world takes for granted but Arabs had
never seen televised. The guests that Faisal Qassem brought to the Doha
studios (or via satellite) included people from the same Arab country
or region but representing completely opposing points of view.
Pride and prejudice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/0,,1324846,00.html
Simon Tisdall
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
Judging by last night's Guildhall speech, Tony Blair believes Britain
and the US can set the terms of an expanded dialogue with Iran. Many in
Tehran will find this surprising. Even the most unworldly mullah knows
this urge to chat reflects weakness, not strength.
Mr Blair wants to encourage Iran and Syria to assist Middle East peace
efforts, not just in Iraq but also Lebanon and Israel-Palestine. If
they refuse, he says, they will face further isolation. Like George
Bush, the prime minister has declined to rule out military action
against Iran's nuclear facilities. These are hardly confidence-building
measures.
This is a dazzling debunking of climate change science. It is also
wildly wrong
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1946996,00.html
Deniers are *****-a-hoop at an aristocrat's claims that global warming
is a UN hoax. But the physics is bafflingly bad
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
For the past nine days my inbox has been filling up with messages
labelled "Your scam exposed", "The great fraud unravels" and "How do
you feel now, *****?". They are referring to a new "scientific
paper", which proves that the "climate change scare" is a tale
"worthier of St John the Divine than of science".
Published in two parts on consecutive Sundays, it runs to a total of 52
pages, containing graphs, tables and references. To my correspondents,
to a good many journalists and to thousands of delighted bloggers, this
paper clinches it: climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a leftwing
conspiracy coordinated by the United Nations.
No terror supremo will overcome public fears of enemies within
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1947033,00.html
Britain's biggest national security problem isn't so much law
enforcement as a cycle of mutual hostility and alienation
Max Hastings
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
The terrorist news that caused me to spend the weekend hiding under the
blankets was not Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's warning that MI5 knows
of at least 30 ongoing plots, but the threats from both major parties
to create a cabinet "terror supremo". Gordon Brown says that, as prime
minister, he would take personal charge of our security. David Cameron
is calling for a "minister for terror".
This prospect should make us tremble. A minister with dedicated
responsibility for national security would be justly resented by all
the cabinet colleagues on whose corns he or she would trample. And
whereas the present home secretary spends only half his time devising
ill-considered and often pernicious legislation to protect us, a
"terror supremo" would do nothing else.
Commission improbable
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1947003,00.html
What chance Baker's Iraq Study Group coming up with something original?
Don't hold your breath
Michael Kinsley
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
The Baker commission, aka the Iraq Study Group, is expected to report
early next month, and is duly bouncing around, holding hearings and all
the things that prestigious US commissions do. Appointed by Congress
and co-chaired by James Baker, it's hearing from Tony Blair this week.
Ordinarily, a commission like this has two possible purposes: action or
inaction. Sometimes a problem is referred to a commission so that it
can recommend what everybody knows must be done, but no one has the
nerve to propose. The commission can ram this policy down the
politicians' allegedly unwilling throats. If it is bipartisan - and
what fun is a commission that isn't bipartisan? - the commission also
protects both parties against a stab in the back by the other.
This is not about ancestral glory-hunting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1946931,00.html
Researching our family histories can be humbling, and helps us
understand the past, says Dan Waddell
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
I'm sure three million amateur family historians don't mind being
called self-regarding by a media pundit, though I'm certain they would
have preferred it if Zoe Williams had chosen to make a valid argument
rather than taking a few provocative swings against them (Ancestor
worship, November 8).
Despite the question "What is history?" having exercised the greatest
thinkers of our time for decades, Williams claims genealogy is the
"opposite of history". Apparently "historical inquiry would always take
you to the heart of the events, whether in the traditional sense
(royals) or the revisionist one (radicals, grassroots movements, that
sort of thing). From neither perspective can the criterion 'they've got
to be related to me before I'm at all interested', be anything but an
impediment'."
How do you define Englishness? A documentary about race flummoxed its
participants
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_radio/story/0,,1947012,00.html
Lucy Mangan
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
If the tape had not been clearly labelled as part of the Dispatches
series, I think I would have assumed that 100% English (Channel 4) was
the first fruit of a marvellously fertile collaboration between Ricky
Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Armando Iannucci. They could certainly
have come up with the premise: take a handful of proudly English
individuals each convinced of their purely Anglo-Saxon heritage, then
confront them with DNA evidence to the contrary, sit back and observe
their responses. But I think I would eventually have rumbled the
documentary nature of the programme, on the grounds that you just
couldn't make up most of the participants.
100% English
http://news.google.com/news?num=3D100&hl=3Den&lr=3D&safe=3Doff&q=3D%22100%2=
5%20English%22&btnG=3DSearch&ie=3DUTF-8&oe=3DUTF-8&sa=3DN&tab=3Dgn
http://www.google.com/search?num=3D100&hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF-8&oe=3DUTF-8&=
q=3D%22100%25+English%22&sa=3DN&tab=3Dnw
http://www.google.com/search?q=3D%22100%25+English%22&btnG=3DSearch+Directo=
ry&hl=3Den&cat=3Dgwd%2FTop
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=3Den&q=3D%22100%25+English%22&bt=
nG=3DSearch+Blogs
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=3D%22100%25+English%22&start=3D0&scoring=
=3Dd&num=3D100&hl=3Den&lr=3D&safe=3Doff&ie=3DUTF-8&oe=3DUTF-8&
New tiger in town
http://business.guardian.co.uk/economicdispatch/story/0,,1946763,00.html
Vietnam's recent economic performance has been outstanding, writes Mark
Tran, but there's more work in store if the country wants to distribute
its new wealth fairly
Monday November 13, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
George Bush may be damaged goods politically after the US midterm
elections, but a red-carpet welcome nonetheless awaits the US president
in Vietnam this week.
Mr Bush and other world leaders, including President Hu Jintao of China
and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, will be feted by the Vietnamese
leadership at a summit meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (Apec) forum in the capital Hanoi starting on Friday.
For Vietnam, hosting the biggest international event in its history,
the occasion marks the latest step in its transformation from a
war-ravaged country and isolated economic weakling to Asia's newest
economic tiger.
UN says politics lies behind rift between west and Muslims
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1946956,00.html
Brian Whitaker
Tuesday November 14, 2006
The Guardian
Politics - not religion - lies at the root of a growing divide between
Muslim and western societies, according to a report presented to the UN
secretary general, Kofi Annan, yesterday.
An international panel of scholars, politicians and religious leaders
warned that cultural stereotypes were turning negotiable disputes into
"seemingly intractable identity-based conflicts" and that the
clash-of-civilisations theory has obscured "the real nature of the
predicament the world is facing".
Our new friends in the Middle East
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1981732.ece
Iran and Syria were demonised to justify the invasion of Iraq. Now
Britain and the US want their help sorting out the mess ...
Published: 14 November 2006
2003: THE AXIS OF EVIL
President George Bush's State of the Union address refers to the "axis
of evil": Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The implication is that Iraq is
the first to be dealt with in the "war on terror". But Iran aids the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein, keeping the lid on Shia unrest. Tehran is
dismayed as international jihadists and Sunni insurgents target the
Shia majority in the hope of triggering civil war. Mr Bush rejects an
overture from Iran, under pro-reform President Mohammed Khatami, to
review their relationship, frozen since the US embassy hostage-taking
of 1979. Instead, the US accuses Iran of sponsoring terror and seeking
nuclear weapons. The crisis deepens after Iran admits it has a uranium
enrichment facility. Iran fears the US wants regime change.
Anne Penketh: A belated recognition of where the real power in the land
lies
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1981710.ece
Published: 14 November 2006
The Iranians and Syrians must have been choking on their tea last
night. After three years of being branded a part of the axis of evil
and an outpost of tyranny and ordered not to meddle in Iraq, they are
being invited to be part of the new Middle East.
But not the one advocated three years ago by the neoconservatives who
predicted that the fall of Saddam Hussein would give rise to a wave of
democracy that would sweep Arab dictators from their pedestals. That
dream was shattered for good last week by the American midterm
elections which propelled the Democrats into the driving seat of
Congress for the first time in 12 years.
From foe to friend: Vietnam and the legacy of war
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1981679.ece
When George Bush arrives in Hanoi this week for a trade summit, he will
see a country which has prospered during three decades of peace - but
is still scarred by conflict
By Kathy Marks
Published: 14 November 2006
Thirty-one years have passed since the fall of Saigon brought an
ignominious end to the Vietnam War. The last US troops had left two
years earlier. Yet it continues to haunt the American psyche,
especially today, when so many parallels can be drawn with the current
situation in Iraq.
Images of Vietnam remain profoundly influenced by the war: forests
defoliated by Agent Orange; the massacre at My Lai; B-52 bombers
dropping their deadly load; people fighting to board a helicopter as it
takes off from the roof of the US embassy; a little girl runing in
terror, her body scorched by napalm.
Migrants to send =A3105bn back home to relatives this year
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1981728.ece
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 14 November 2006
Migrant workers will send home a record amount of money this year,
outstripping international aid contributions.
The World Bank said the recorded amount of money sent home was on
course to rise by 6 per cent to almost $200bn (=A3105bn), but it
estimated that the real amount could be 50 per cent higher, about
$300bn.
The world city: one in three Londoners was born overseas
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1981727.ece
By Maxine Frith, Social Affairs Correspondent
Published: 14 November 2006
A third of Londoners were not born in Britain, according to research
which throws fresh light on the capital's status as a multi-cultural
magnet. The capital now has its highest proportion of residents who
started life overseas, with the foreign-born population standing at
more than 2.2 million.
There are 658,000 more non-British-born London residents than in 1997,
according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The number of
British-born Londoners has fallen by 150,000 since Labour came to
power, although they still account for more than 5 million of the 7.3
million who live in the capital.
A coalition of the willing
Mike Ion
November 14, 2006 09:49 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mike_ion/2006/11/post_616.html
The Labour MP Jon Cruddas is right - we need to take on the BNP at a
local level. Friday's acquittal of the BNP's Nick Griffin from charges
of inciting racial hatred raises all sorts of questions about how
progressive politics deals with the rise of the far-right in Britain.
According to Gordon Brown we need to do "whatever we can to root it
[racial hatred] out from whatever quarter it comes." He is right, of
course. The question is how is this best achieved?
One way is to address some of the underlying causes that have resulted
in many traditional Labour supporters taking refuge in the policies of
the far-right. As people like Jon Cruddas have pointed out, one reason
for the growing support for the BNP has been its ability to respond to
and exploit genuine local grievances, such as the end of funding for a
project in a white area in Mixenden, or the lack of affordable housing
on the Isle of Dogs. Cruddas is right when he argues that the BNP is
often successful in what he describes as the "forgotten" white areas,
those areas where many traditional Labour supporters say that they feel
alienated from modern political discourse and have long been of the
view that no one in the Labour party is listening to them let alone
concerned about them.
Articles of faith
Theo Hobson
November 14, 2006 09:10 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/theo_hobson/2006/11/atheism_is_a_faith_=
position.html
AC Grayling indignantly rejects the charge that atheism is a faith
position. It is mere neutrality, he insists. It is the default position
of a sane intelligence. It is simply the refusal to subscribe to any
religious creed. Atheists reject all forms of faith in favour of "a
reliance on reason and observation, and a concomitant preparedness to
accept the judgement of both on the principles and theories that
premise their actions." Faith is the direct opposite of this: it is
"the commitment to a belief in the absence of evidence supporting that
belief." He objects to the term "atheist", for it carries the
implication that belief in God is normative; it defines non-believers
by their dissent from it. Rationalists also dissent from belief in
fairies, goblins and all other superstitions, he observes - why should
their rejection of God be singled out as their defining feature?
This is superficially persuasive. But it doesn't tell the whole truth
about atheism, or "the rationalist rejection of religious belief", if
Grayling prefers. In practice, it is possible to reject religion with a
reforming, missionary zeal. This of course is his position, and that of
Dawkins. There is indeed a faith dimension to their non-belief. By
contrast it is possible to reject religious belief in a less ardent
way: this is known as agnosticism.
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