August 2011
10 posts
Flogging is too good for them →
Mark Steel:
[According to David Starkey] the riots were caused, apparently, by black culture, and we can get round the fact some rioters were white by saying they’d turned black, and get round the fact most black people don’t riot by saying they’ve turned white. You could use that logic to prove that being Welsh causes boats to capsize, or that everything alive is a penguin.
“The more that emerges about the Thameslink contract stitch-up the murkier it...”
– RMT general secretary Bob Crow — Unions want Bombardier bid answers
‘The absurd reasoning that defines the drug war’ →
Bill Conroy for Narco News:
Despite the fact that an ICE informant, Ramirez Peyro, helped to facilitate a number of the House of Death murders while working for the U.S. government, because the victims were Mexicans the U.S. government and its law enforcers did not “owe a duty of care” to them. In other words, their murders don’t count, nor is anyone in the U.S. government “negligent” for...
From Salt of the Earth to Scum on the Streets... →
Owen Jones interviewed by Samuel Grove for the New Left Project:
The idea that ‘we’re all middle-class now’ was embraced by both New Labour and the Tories alike. For the right, the exception to this was the so-called ‘underclass’, who were believed to be the product of state dependency and behavioural problems; for influential US right-winger Charles Murray, the break-down of marriage among...
The Myth of The New York Times, in Documentary... →
Chris Hedges, writing about NYT documentary Page One:
The reigning corporate ideology has infected the Times as it has most other liberal institutions. Because this ideology does not challenge the status quo it is defended by these editors as evidence of the paper’s impartiality, balance and neutrality. ExxonMobil, Citibank and Goldman Sachs are treated with deference and respect. The...
“It seems odd that a libertarian such as Staines thinks that the state is...”
– Daniel Elton, Five good reasons why the death penalty should not be reinstated
‘Extreme Dishonesty’ – The Guardian, Noam Chomsky... →
The Guardian is normally happy to ignore him and his views. But when Chomsky expresses criticism of an official enemy of the West, he suddenly does exist and matter for the Guardian. That indicates what we already knew: that the liberal press is perfectly aware of the importance of Chomsky’s work. They just ignore it because it undermines the wrong interests.
Dean Baker on the debt ceiling deal →
The protracted negotiations over the debt ceiling, as well as the final package agreed to by President Obama and the congressional leadership, show what happens when a small minority is allowed to gain control over national debate. While polls consistently show that the vast majority of the public sees jobs as the main problem facing the economy, there has been a well-funded crusade to ignore...
Carroll in wonderland: how the Guardian... →
Samuel Grove:
The reality is that [Rory] Carroll has never intended to steer an even course between the Chavez government and its opponents. He has been far more concerned with titillating his readers by slandering the Venezuelan government. In the same piece in which the Guardian defended Carroll’s journalism, Butterworth notes that
[Carroll] considers Chávez’s personality to be...
Forever Young, The Tragedy Of Bloodlines →
Jim Rossignol:
Like the plight of an animal species on the verge of extinction, the lack of games comparable to Bloodlines is one of the great tragedies of our time.
Hyperbole aside, he’s right.