David Banks: Twitter-tattle about celebrity sex lives is little to celebrate
However, from the lofty heights of the Trafigura Twitterstorm we now seem, in recent days, to be plumbing the depths of what social media can be used to expose. After all, in the last 48 hours we have not learned of gagging orders obtained by corporations stifling journalistic endeavour. We have instead been treated to a series of tweets revealing the identity of celebrities said to have sought injunctions over allegations invariably sexual in their nature.
If this is the brave new world of journalism some might wonder when it is going to move out of the bedroom and into the boardroom.
Imperial Delusions and the Killing of Bin Laden
When Obama refers to “our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place,” we should understand it the same way we would understand Bush saying such things: Our “values” are rhetorical cover for empire; the “sacrifices” are typically imposed upon the vulnerable; and a “safer” world is more dangerous than ever.
Edward Herman: Gilbert Achcar’s Defense of Humanitarian Intervention
Really takes him to task, particularly this bit:
He doesn’t ask how their concern for Libyan civilians can be genuine when simultaneously they support the crackdown on Bahraini civilians and the invasion of Bahrain by Saudi Arabia. Assuredly he doesn’t refer to Madeleine Albright’s 1996 statement that the U.S. policy-caused death of 500,000 Iraqi children was “worth it” as indicative of U.S. concern over foreign civilian well-being. Or the significance of the almost daily reports of civilians killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. drone attacks, and the many thousands of “collateral damage” deaths in these countries and Iraq. Weapons evolution with drones and cluster bombs has tended to enlarge civilian casualties.[7] Shouldn’t this be mentioned in evaluating claims that a military response featuring air-power will serve to protect civilians?
There’s also a couple of pars earlier on that are very interesting, debunking Achcar’s use of Rwanda as an example where Western intervention could have saved lives. Herman points out that the West were heavily involved in Rwanda before the massacre and US support for Paul Kagame’s armed rebels could have “touched off” the slaughter.
Berks and wankers, prescriptivists and descriptivists
The berks and wankers are really, of course, also Kingsly’s sly parody of the language pundit. Every language writer thinks that there are mistakes that only idiots make. And every one considers certain rules stuffy or bogus. Where pundits disagree is deciding which language sins make you a berk, and which usage shibboleths make you a wanker.
Noam Chomsky: Understanding Democracy
We are in a new stage of state-capitalism in which the future just doesn’t matter very much, even the survival of the firm doesn’t matter very much. What matters increasingly is short term profit and if a CEO doesn’t pursue that, he will be replaced with someone who will do it. This is institutional effect, not individual effect, and has extraordinary implications on society. It may, in fact, destroy our very existence.
Exclusive: How Blair and BP “Lied” Over Iraqi Oil
Greg Muttitt:
“Not for nothing was BP known as Blair Petroleum, but Baroness Symons’ attitude sounds more like something from the Nineteenth Century. Didn’t her officials point out that under the Hague and Geneva conventions it’s illegal to fight wars for resources?”
Fallujah, Iraq 2004 — Misrata, Libya 2011
On April 20, we challenged the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus on his coverage of the war in Libya:
Hi Jonathan
I’m sure you believe your reporting is completely neutral. You write: “there seems to be a general sense that something more must be done…” to help rebels “defeat their government opponents on the ground”. You ask “But what? None of the options are quick or simple”. You then provide three military options: [Nato ‘boots on the ground’, ‘equip and train’ rebels and ‘advice and support’ for rebels].
Can you see that, to be neutral, you would have to pen a companion article outlining military options that would help pro-Gaddafi forces defeat the rebels and Nato? Inconceivable, of course. Best wishes
David
Marcus responded the same day:
Sorry I disagree with your logic. I don’t believe my reporting is neutral - I know it is. We must leave it at that - we are not going to agree. JM
He added: “I am paid precisely not to have strong views but to try to analyse events fairly which I have done.”
We replied, again on the same day:
Thanks Jonathan. It’s not about agreeing; it’s about providing reasonable arguments to justify important positions. To be balanced, the BBC would have to outline options that might enable pro-Gaddafi forces to win the war. This the BBC would never do because it would be seen as an endorsement for Gaddafi’s cause. And this is why your report was not neutral - it’s fine to offer a de facto endorsement for the rebels’ cause, even though the BBC doesn’t just believe, but knows it’s neutral.
Prince Philip: 90 gaffes in 90 years
“Do you still throw spears at each other?” Prince Philip shocks Aboriginal leader William Brin at the Aboriginal Cultural Park in Queensland, 2002.
How not to answer interview questions
From a New Left Project interview with Hamid Dabashi, author of Brown Skin, White Masks:
Can you give us a brief synopsis of your main argument?
I think it should be left to my readers to find out for themselves what this book is about. Any act of writing is an act of successive and open-ended discovery, predicated on the initial impetus that places a person in front of a laptop.
Is he trying to get into Pseuds Corner?
He continues:
In short, I have sought to think through the racialized manufacturing of hegemony in the making of an empire, or engineering consent to it, while critically reconsidering the whole function of expatriate intellectuals in that process.
“In short”, indeed.
The book got a bad review in the Morning Star and this just gives me another reason not to read it.
If At First You Don't Succeed — Four Decades Of US-UK Attempts To Topple Gadafi
Richard Keeble:
Behind a wall of silence, the US and UK have been conducting over the last four decades a massive, largely secret war against Libya — often using Chad, the country lying on its southern border, as its base. The current attacks on Col. Gadafi’s troops and attempts to assassinate the Libyan leader with the US deployment of unmanned drones are best seen as part of a wide-ranging and long-standing strategy by the US/UK secret states to dislodge Gadafi.
This is a longer version of a piece published on the Universty of Lincoln’s Expert Comment site.
