Social studies
Libby Brooks
February 3, 2007 10:49 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/libby_brooks/2007/02/post_1044.html
Is class the last taboo? Is it meaningful to talk about class
distinctions any more? And why do middle-class folk always assume that
working-class people would really rather be like them?
These were a few of the questions raised in a wide-ranging and
pleasantly amorphous panel discussion that took place on Thursday
night at the Guardian Newsroom. Chaired by Madeleine Bunting, the
panel consisted of Lynsey Hanley, whose passionate book Estates: an
Intimate History was published a few weeks ago, myself and Alexander
Masters, who won the Guardian First Book award in 2005 for his
stunning biography Stuart: A Life Backwards. And, yes, we were aware
that we were a bunch of mostly middle-class urbanites being earnest
about the poor.
Of plagiarism and primaries
Ian Williams
February 2, 2007 07:58 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ian_williams/2007/02/primary_number_joe=
_biden_my_pa.html
The primary season has started early in the United States. Would-be
candidates have been spotted "exploring" Iowa, getting in touch with
their feigned inner folksiness - and ready for next year's caucus.
Joe Biden, one of the candidates, was laughed out the race almost two
decades ago for plagiarizing a speech made by Neil Kinnock in the 1987
election campaign, during which I worked in the Labour Party leader's
office writing speeches and articles. (To be fair, Neil always ended
up composing his own speeches based on the input from the writers.)
A strategy in tatters
Robert Fox
February 2, 2007 07:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_fox/2007/02/post_1050.html
Kandahar - The Taliban capture of the centre of Musa Qala in northern
Helmand is the biggest setback to British efforts in Afghanistan since
Tony Blair first sent troops there at the end of 2001.
The town, in the opium poppy growing belt along the Helmand river, had
been held by British paratroopers in desperate fighting through much
of the summer. British forces were spread out in small outposts or
"platoon houses" across the province - in the hope they would become
small havens of security from which the British and Afghan government
force hoped to spread "ink spots" of peace across the province - one
of the most violent in all Afghanistan.
Ch=E1vez makes a monkey of Bush
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2005069,00.html
Duncan Campbell
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
In the lexicon of political insults it will take some beating. Already
known for his somewhat colourful use of language Venezuelan president
Hugo Ch=E1vez has probably written himself into the history books for a
new sidewipe at his US counterpart George Bush.
In the latest salvo in the war of words between the two countries Mr
Ch=E1vez described Mr Bush as "evil," a "criminal" but then added that
he was "more dangerous than a monkey with a razor blade".
What's the big idea?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/=
0,,2005037,00.html
Francis Fukuyama jumped clear of the wreckage as neocon certainties
crashed in Iraq. But his change of heart made him enemies in
Washington, he tells Oliver Burkeman
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
If they were still on speaking terms, arch-neoconservative Charles
Krauthammer and ex-neoconservative Francis Fukuyama might be able to
thrash out exactly what happened on February 10 2004 at a dinner
attended by rightwing thinkers at the Hilton hotel in Washington.
Krauthammer remembers giving a "fairly theoretical" foreign policy
address. Fukuyama, listening, seems to have experienced an epiphany.
The speech "treated the war [in Iraq] as a virtually unqualified
success", he remembered later. "I could not understand why everyone
was applauding the speech enthusiastically, given that the United
States had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was bogged
down in a vicious insurgency and had almost totally isolated itself
from the rest of the world."
Taliban overrun town as peace deal fails
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2005094,00.html
=B7 Locals flee after militants disarm new police force
=B7 Offensive happens two days before Nato handover
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
British strategy in Afghanistan suffered a blow when the Taliban
overran a town in northern Helmand where a controversial peace deal
had been signed.
Hundreds of insurgents stormed into Musa Qala on Thursday night,
disarming the local police, burning government buildings and
threatening elders, officials and residents said.
Intelligence report tells Bush conflict is 'civil war'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2005095,00.html
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
The US intelligence services yesterday admitted for the first time
that the violence in Iraq constituted a "civil war".
In a joint report, the 16 services said the term was an accurate
description of the sectarian strife that kills hundreds every month.
But the White House continued to resist the tag, arguing that the
violence does not merit the term and that the causes of the conflict
are multi-faceted.
Revealed: the front organisation set up by BNP members to raise money
in the US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,2005092,00.html
=B7 Civil Liberty run by key party activists
=B7 Nick Griffin urged Americans to donate
Matthew Taylor, Ian Cobain and Rob Evans
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
Members of the British National party have set up a front organisation
in an attempt to raise money from far right sympathisers in the United
States.
An investigation by the Guardian has revealed that the fundraising
group Civil Liberty, which claims to be independent of any political
party, is run by key BNP activists with all the money donated through
its website going to the BNP's regional headquarters in the north-
east.
It has raised concerns that the party appears to be attempting to
profit from anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States since the
attacks of September 11 2001, by presenting itself as being at the
forefront of a campaign to save the UK from being "overwhelmed" by
Muslims.
'May God help us all'
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2004539,00.html
Ir=E8ne N=E9mirovsky's posthumous novel Suite Fran=E7aise, about life in
Occupied France, was the literary hit of last year. As her bestselling
second book is reissued, Carmen Callil traces the author's fateful
last days
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
Ir=E8ne N=E9mirovsky's Suite Fran=E7aise was the literary success of 2006,
chosen by many critics as their book of the year. This success is
international. Since first publication in France in 2004 - where it
became an instant bestseller - translations in some 30 different
languages have been, or are to be, published. Suite Fran=E7aise
comprises two novels, Storm in June and Dolce, the first in an epic,
symphonic novel sequence about France and its people during the German
occupation.
Into bed with Tony
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2003957,00.html
Nick Cohen thinks his defence of the Iraq war in What's Left? is a
sign of maturity. Peter Wilby begs to differ
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way
by Nick Cohen
405pp, Fourth Estate, =A312.99
Almost from the moment Tony Blair became Labour's leader, Nick Cohen
was his fiercest and most articulate critic. While nearly every other
liberal press commentator hailed Blair as the saviour of the British
left, Cohen saw through new Labour from the start, denouncing it as
modish, shallow and potentially corrupt. His rage, in columns for the
Observer and the New Statesman, was unrelenting: in his own words,
"attacking Tony Blair was what ... got me out of bed in the mornings".
He brought to his mission not only a scornful wit that drew
comparisons with Jonathan Swift, but also the skills of an exceptional
news journalist who could unearth telling evidence to support his
case.
Onward to the apocalypse
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2003977,00.html
Chris Hedges charts the rise of the US Christian right in American
Fascists, says Nicholas Lezard
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
by Chris Hedges
(Jonathan Cape, =A312.99)
The next time you're in Petersburg, Kentucky, I recommend you drop in
on the Creation Museum, which has been built in order to illustrate
the complete, literal truth of the account of the creation as told in
the book of Genesis. You will see tableaux of prehistoric children
playing with dinosaurs; a scale model of Noah's ark; a display of the
Garden of Eden with carefully positioned nude Adam and Eve, also
frolicking with dinosaurs; and, perhaps best of all, a display showing
how "a contemporary family experiences daily life without God". As
Chris Hedges describes it: "It portrays a household in disarray, with
fights and teenager drug use." Well, at least they've got one thing
right.
Only survive
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2003959,00.html
Roman Halter tells the story of his personal struggle in his moving
memoir of his time in Auschwitz, Roman's Journey. We can never learn
too much about the Holocaust, says Carole Angier
Saturday February 3, 2007
The Guardian
Roman's Journey
by Roman Halter
304pp, Portobello, =A315.99
In the normal world there is at least some limit to both power and
powerlessness; in Auschwitz - as Primo Levi told us - there was none.
If there is no connection between the two worlds, do we need to know
about Auschwitz, or any part of the concentration-camp universe? Is it
not like reading about exceptional monsters, such as serial killers -
that is, mere morbidity?
Bush stands alone in his refusal to take heed
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2211558.ece
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Nigel Morris in London
Published: 03 February 2007
The Bush administration - out of touch with much of the world and much
of the nation over climate change - has been put under even greater
pressure to take action to deal with global warming as a result of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings.
As Washington continues to refuse to impose limits on carbon emissions
- even while governments at state level are taking action in this area
- Mr Bush was urged to adopt a new policy immediately.
Robert Fisk: Please spare me the word 'terrorist'
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2211576.ece
Lebanon is a good place to find out what tosh the 'terror' merchants
talk
Published: 03 February 2007
So it was back to terror, terror, terror this week. The "terrorist"
Hizbollah was trying to destroy the "democratically elected
government" of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. The "terrorist" Hamas
government cannot rule Palestine. Iranian "terrorists" in Iraq are
going to be gunned down by US troops.
My favourite line of the week came from the "security source" - just
how one becomes a "security source" remains a mystery to me -- who
announced: "Terrorists are always looking for new ways to strike
terror... There is no end of the possibilities where terrorists can
try to cause terror to the public." Well, you could have fooled me.
Deborah Orr: If exceptions can be made for the very rich, do the same
for the very poor
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/deborah_orr/article2211599.=
ece
Blair himself has done much to encourage the demonisation of those who
are excluded
Published: 03 February 2007
Funny old Tony Blair. Even now, bogged down as he is in the detritus
of his decade-long premiership, he's still quite clearly convinced
that he's got plenty more to do. He was resigned to, rather than
chastened by, the fact that his interviewer yesterday morning on the
radio, John Humphrys, was under an obligation to ask him to defend his
past rather than chat merrily about all his new plans. Yet one or two
of the things he managed to say, in between lengthily expounding on
why he wasn't going to be saying anything, suggested that if he was
going to do it all again, then he might do one or two things
differently.
I was particularly intrigued by his comments about the failure of
Labour to promote egalitarianism, and his comments about the part of
the population who have remained stubbornly marooned in the
underclass. "The trouble with the world in which we live today, it's
like with companies which are highly mobile, if you take a few rich or
wealthy individuals who live in London and you go and clobber them
with taxation, I'm afraid you're not actually going to get money;
they'll just move elsewhere.
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