El Pibe

In fact, talking about how David Milliband would have got the party elected is the ultimate blairism statement, because it was all about getting elected, power for power's sake. There were no actual principles underlying it. Sure he cherry picked, he gave in a little bit to this faction, that interesting and enthused about whatever was in his head, Banging heads together in NI, NHS IT white elephants, murdering fuzzy wuzzies.... I doubt DM would have been as wholly devoid of underlying priciples as Blair, because I'm not sure anyone else is, hell, even the devil has principles, but if ever the phrase damning with faint praise was applicable....

If I was looking for some flatmates, I'd like to think non-violent communication was something of a given!!!!

aeronautical charts?

Anabelle Croft?

"places like Cairo as recently as 20 years ago had reasonable numbers of bars/nightlife and woman, including locals, could wear what they wanted, no longer." The middle East had a surprisingly Christian feel right across it, Egypt was a majority christian country as late as something like the 16th century. One of the things that she describes in the article i linked to was how religion needed a new cohesive force to replace it in the form of nationalism, which by its nature excludes the different. One of the issues of this reaction to secularism has been curiously nationalist style attempt to eradicate this christian nature of many arabs and arab countries. Willaim Dalrymples travelogue is a great read for this http://www.amazon.co.uk/From-Holy-Mountain-Journey-Byzantium/dp/0006547745 (a clue, at the time 'secular' Turkey was by far the worst) The Assads may have killed half a million of their citizens between them, but they were tolerant of everything, bar (no pun intended) disloyalty.

Parkdrive Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > El Pibe Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > > I agree with that EP, defelecting attention away > from their own back yard. I genuinely didn't mean that in a plot type fashion, but that it's useful fallout from their foreign policies, and it does no harm, domestically, to bleat quite as loodly about it as they do.

in fact, whilst i'm at it "there are huge, huge swathes of the world where secularism and the values of the enlightment are being pushed back by religous dogma in a way that wasn't the case as recently as the 70s and 80s." Apart from Turkey and Egypt, these huge swathes were only adopting it in the 50s and 60s. The strains were immediately apparent in those societies, giving birth to the Muslim Bortherhood in the 30s (i think) and national resistance in Afghanistan and Iran. I reckon we can say that we find ourselves where we are today thanks to 1979 with the overthrow of the Shah and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in a futile bid to force these values on a deeply conservative society. I recommend "A Destiny Disrupted" an islamic history of the world https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6240926-destiny-disrupted to get the idea that there can be no separation of state and religion in the Islamic world, Islam governing all aspects of life as it does, is absolutely intrinsically 'political', secularism will only come when the religion itself ceases to be.

There's a lovely irony in that most muscular of secular states, the US, has in fact, as a society, failed to resolve the questions posed by this separation, and with its peculiar brand of nationalism. Much of its home grown terrorism revolved around the deep fractures in its society, the same fissures that fuel the Taliban, Hamas, ISIS et al. I'm no conspiracist, but it is kind of tempting to posit that by keeping such noisy attention on bombing 'them', that the cultural wars in the US have been decidely less deadly than they were.

I loved Gerrard complaining that liverpool players didn't want it enough.....*ahem* England *coughs*

But that's rather the point quids. That secularism was whacked all of a sudden on top of various societies, some of which weren't *ever* buying it, except among well to do elites, and this is the fallout. The PLO were intellectual communist revolutionaries, not a popular movement.

if you two are going to have a tit for tat touched you last type thing, can you dispense with the quote this message button.

even a stopped clock etc. excellent article on the wrongs of muscular secularism. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/-sp-karen-armstrong-religious-violence-myth-secular I love Karen Armstrong, she has great instincts and empathy for religious history, even if she does play a bit fast and loose with the, you know, history part of it to fit her narrative sometimes. But this is a very good, brief sweeping overview of how the west has transformed and that in many respects the evils we see and decry in the islamic world really IS a defence against a long tradition of very deadly cultural imperialism by the west. Of course that's not to say ISIS are a nice bunch or we should let them get on with it if its in our power to protect the victims of violence. But it's worth remembering that in getting to where we are 10s of millions of Europeans died and many tens of millions round the world followed in the wake of our secular rebirth. Society is a lumbering beast and when it changes death usually follows in its wake.

Mick Mac Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you shit on your own brother's obvious career > aspirations, you are likely a shit person. > > Decent... ? No. I dunno, I think that was a principled stand. He obviously had no time for Blairites/sm, was immediate to distance the party from all that and saw his brother as the head of a faction that wanted to drag Labour deeper into the mire. I don't think it was personal, I'm sure they still get on better than your Hitchens did (whilst they were both alive and stuff).

wo'ottasaid

Today's is a typical post-shark article. I'd actually made a vaguely similar point, but I like to think i did it rather than better. He manages to fail at being analytical, thoughtful, satirical or even absurd; the fact that i'm not sure which he was aiming for propbably says it all. He should probably stick to economics.

George Monbiot has been really sh!t of late, I used to quite like him.

I'm new irish and so is my wife, actually no she's old irish too.

weirdly combining a couple of different threads and strands, here's a stuart heritage CIF piece on the cost of living where he writes the word "ballache" which made me chuckle after bellendgate because i pronounced it "bal?sh" in my head and wondered what the hell one of them was for a moment.... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/30/house-prices-capital-overpriced-london?CMP=fb_gu

nicely reflects my main issue with x-factor that it sells bad ideals and is less escapism than making people feel bad about their normal lives. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/the-x-factor-real-job-syco for once there was something worthwhile in the comments "X-factor is just a gap year from Argos"

of course, Stuart Heritage, maybe i was getting it mixed up with another of the live blogs.

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have to say, the Guardian live blog of the > X-factor is a joy to behold. I love the way she gets really obsessive about weird details, like Louis' total lack of wit or humanity, nicole's insanity gary's beard length etc...

if you have a new one you get a noptificsation link "you have new private message(s)' at the top right, just click into it when it appears.

I had an interesting cabbie experience in Cornwall this weekend. I asked if anyone in cornwall really thought of it as a separate country. He told me that he doesn't do politics, ok fair enough...but continued that they don't like foreigners down here. Apparently the English are just about alright...you know...the white ones.... It culminated in some nonsense that involved solving problems with nuclear weapons...... awwwwkwarddd...... Quickly steered to pronunciation of place names, safer territory barring some anti american stuff (they try too hard and get everything wrong apparently)

I do actually quite enjoy the early audition stages if I'm honest with myself. The newish boot camp format is awful though. Judge's Houses makes me want to roast bunnies alive and the main show makes me lose the will to live. It's almost bearable if you read the Guardian Live Blog at the same time though.

They do this one too PD