Anders links with European far right

It seems Anders Behring, was quite active amongst far right circles, including our very English Defence League, he also appears to have had a grudge against Labour parties throughout Europe as he claims the UK intelligence services are run by the Labour party (I assume he means controlled and directed by the Party itself rather just ran by its Ministers during its time in government) "Second, Labour governs intelligence service. They had never in his life supported the EDL as these create a lot of positive attention for the cultural conservative movement in the UK." Source which does seem to support the view that he believed the Norwegian Labour party was directly responsible for what he called "Eurabia" and the Islamisation of Europe" hmm those two terms sound familiar to anyone?


He also viewed the Norway's mainstream media as part of a Marxist plot " It would be a pity if you ignored the suggestions and decided to squandered all the money in a potentially "politically correct" person with a background in the Marxist boot camp: Volda University College or any other journalist (Marxist) camps, etc." source number 13 He goes on like that for a while rambling throughout the document about all sorts of topics, though Marxists and Muslims keep cropping up. Anyone familiar with the thinking and propaganda of groups such as the EDL BNP or there continental equivalents will find a lot of it sounds very familiar. All in all quite a paranoid and warped view of the world. Lets hope the appalling nature of Anders actions in Norway will wake at least a few of the flag waving crusader up before there frustrations cause them to try something like this. Well I hope they will but I won't hold my breath.

Take care.

Oslo attacks kill over 80

Yesterday Norway was rudely acquainted with the brutal affects of Terrorism, when a dual attack rocked the capital and brought bloodshed to the idyllic nearby island of Utoey. Fortunately the Oslo car bomb despite being place close to pack government and press offices had a relatively low death toll, unfortunately the attack on Utoeya seems to have been exceptionally bloody. Originally as the below report shows it was fought that most of the young people on the island had thankfully escaped death, but after police where able to mount a proper search of the island they uncovered many more victims.

Friday's coverage


Since we apparently live in the age of false memory syndrome, the attacks where quickly seized upon by crusader fanatics as evidence of the global Jihad (just put Muslim and Oslo into Google like this to see a few examples). Most of the ones I've seen though where by American authors though, so I'm guessing they know nothing of European history, especially its long experience with politically motivated violence from a number of different groups for variou reasons (Marxist politics, National Liberation, Chauvinism etc.). Hell evenf neighbouring Sweden has something of a Terrorist tradition, In 1975 the Red Army Faction took over the West German Embassy then in the following year there was the botched operation Leo and of course we have the term "Stockholm syndrome" though that term was coined after a Bank-heist. The only European sources I could find jumping on the Muslim bomber bandwagon identify themselves with the Far Right, and they have a very cold and fractious relationship with logic and reality anyway.


No it looks like the culprit Anders Behring Breivik (pictured) has been apprehended and is as white as the virgin snow. He also identifies himself as a Christian and a Conservative, which may also explain why so many of the right wing commentators whom called Jihad early on are refusing to retract there statements. It is also suspected that he had links to radical far right groups and had overtly anti-Muslim views. This would also explain why the Labour party was explicitly targeted rather then focusing on state infrastructure. Scandinavia like much of Europe has had some tensions over the immigration specifically Muslim migrants as they are both foreign in appearance culture and religion they top all three categories on right wing "bad" lists. And much of the anger these groups have is directed just as much at the governing party (or parties if changes in government haven't change immigration numbers) as they are the immigrant communities. They view the government as a fifth column allowing the contamination and transformation of are pure and near perfect societies. Deliberately targeting and killing young people (some just 15 years old)is an extremely cold blooded thing to do, and doesn't offer much tactically speaking unless you viewed the organisation they are affiliated too as the enemy in which case your pre-emptively striking against the next generation of the adversary.

Now Anders represents something of a continent wide phenomenon a right wing radical who doesn't fit into the neat mould of a Jackbooted skinhead. In fact in recent years the demographics of far right groups in Europe have shifted away from hard-line Mein Kampf reading Neo-Nazi's. A large number seem to be drawn from radical nationals and Christians. This is for a number of reasons, one of which is that the Parties and gangs on the far right have deliberately positioned themselves away from there roots to appear in a more "defensive role". In fact its debatable if there are any real Fascist groups of prominence left in Europe.Kevin Passmore in his Fascism a very short introduction notes that there are a number of differences the likes of Mussolini and Hitler, and are modern Aryan vanguard Fuhrer's Nick Griffin and Geert Wilders, he argues that a more accurate term would National Populism, since there platforms are essentially define parts of are nations culture we find agreeable define groups and ideas we find irreconcilable with them (Communism, immigrants, Islam etc.) and pledge to vigorously defend it from the "others", this means that modern far right organisations are and will become much more rooted in folk culture and Christianity because those are the pillars of European society, religion and tradition are nothing if not the first examples of ideology and have come to shape how we (even atheists) view things such as property, marriage, gender roles, the layout of the year, and morality. The EDL and BNP, even the old NF all chose to clothe themselves in the symbols of Britain (in particular English Britain)and constantly tell everyone who will listen that they are the ultimate force of Patriotism.

This means that as time goes on we probably see less of the Swastika and Deustchland Deustchland Uber Alles and more crucifixes and national anthems played at the sites of similar atrocities. Take care people of Norway, hope the rebuilding goes as smoothly as possible and that the injured make full recoveries and that the families of the deceased can someday come to terms with there loss.

Your replacement weekend paper

Now that the News of the World has closed down a lot of people will probably have a paper shaped hole on Sunday. If your one of those people don't worry Uncle Michael's got you covered. Now is the perfect opportunity to try out the weekend edition of the MorningStar.
For just £1 you get two days worth of information with almost no adverts (thanks to the ban by the advertising council)with unprecedented coverage of both the labour movement -as opposed to merely regurgitating stock prices like other papers- and the various campaigns to improve are society and the world. It also feature thorough and under appreciated sports sections complete with tips, interviews and analysis of the shady goings on at the managing level that sadly plague many sports at the professional level, without falling victim to blind "my country tis for thee" jingoism that is so prevalent in every other sports coverage that I'm aware of.

Now you can pick up a copy from the shelves in your local Co-op/ Somerfield, or Mcoll's newsagent, as well as a few other chains, or you can ask your local newsagent to order them in for you, (usually they order extra in case other customers are interested). Read a few articles on the website if your a bit unsure, like for example this one. As far as I'm concerned the Morning Star is the only paper where principled journalism is still practised, well the Mirror does have its moments, and the Liberal rags (Independent, and Guardian) are definitely on a level above right wing gutter floaters, but you do have to put up with a ridiculously condescending and self congratulating tone, and for all the protestations about morals and green living won't hesitate to take big payouts from the same companies and individuals they railed against a couple of issues in.

Anyway just a thought.

Rupert the Barefaced Liar

Thought a quick post to celebrate this hilarious song by the folks at Dailyreckless about the on going storm at News International was in order.

The political currency of Tetris

Sorry for the lack of updates, as penance I offer what I hope will be a convergence of multiple themes (for lack of a better word)that I've previously talked about, namely the history of the Soviet Union, and video games. I recently discovered the above very catchy music video detailing a brief yet surprisingly accurate and lyrical history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and modern Russia. The only real criticism I'd make is the endings optimism about Russia's political leanings, its often forgotten that United Russia the Russian Federations governing and most popular party is a Conservative party not a left leaning one. The confusion on this front often stems from two things, first every western Conservative party has since the 1980's completely embraced 19th century liberal economics (hence why its called Neo-Liberal) all Milton Friedman (he bloke who gets the credit) did was update the terminology of Gladstone's speeches. And the seeming refusal of Putin and Medvedev to completely denounce the Soviet Union in its entirety, "Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains."

Anyway after hitting the replay button a dozen times I was reminded of a documentary I watched on BBC Four(first part viewable below*) about the actual Tetris game and how a simple puzzle game about oddly shaped blocks actually raised a few problems for International Relations because of its popularity.

During the Cold War there were periods of "thawing" between the West and the USSR, at this time trade did occur and were expanded. The most significant period of trade occurred in the 1970's after Nixon and Kissinger successfully achieved what became known as Great Power Detente. This period ended in 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The then President Carter who was suffering a severe lack of popularity as throughout the third world especially in Angola, Nicaragua and Iran the "red menace" appeared to be gaining ground toppling friendly autocrats while the United States seem to do nothing, (actually Carter approved funding and military assistance to practically every trouble spot including the Mujahedeen) so to make a big show for the American public Carter suspended all trade agreements and boycotted the Moscow Olympics, unfortunately this was not enough to save President "Peanut" though it did give Reagan the opening he needed to expand aide to the mujahedeen, and the Contra's, and the government of El Salvador amongst others.

However entertainment was exempted since it had no tactical applications or aided Soviet Foreign policy in any meaningful way. However there was still one critical problem with East West trading of electronic products. Officially the Soviet Union did not belief in individual ownership of property so who exactly would the Western game makers (in the 80's there were literally dozens of competing computer systems) acquire the rights from? The games maker Alexey Pajitnov no unless he defects as the game was developed at a Soviet Research and Development lab and he doesn't have the necessary authority. Fortunately for Nintendo and there new Gameboy good old General Secretary Gorbachev would smooth the process. As part of his economic restructuring (Perestroika) Gorbachev was very keen to increase exports to the west so created a number of export institutions such as ELORG for software exports, whose remit Tetris obviously fell under. There was however still a problem in that these export ministries had absolutely no precedent to draw experience from and a lot of pressure to deliver results, much of Perestroika and the future of the USSR depended on there performance. So in practice they operated like a cross between the Soviet foreign office and the KGB, extremely paranoid.

All of this makes for fascinating viewing.




*Torrent of the full documentary can be found with seeds here.

Correcting a Revisionist theory about Star Trek

This ones only half serious. Now we all know what about Star Trek, its one of those "franchises" that became so popular and omnipresent that even if you've never watched a show, you'll know about the Enterprise, Captain Kirk, Spock, Picard (pictured) and maybe Worf and Data (a Klingon and Android respectively). The show is also well remember for its positive political messages, especially the first serious that despite airing in 1966 a time when racism sexism and homophobia were very common to the point of normality even in liberal commie Hollywood. So to make a show with a diverse cast of ethnics and mixed gender was quite ground breaking stuff. Though of course there were limits placed on it, the The three mains Kirk Spock and McCoy where white, and the female characters Uhura and Chapel where essentially a receptionist and a Nurse, and the female uniform was a lot more revealing then the male one so yeah. You might also have heard the story that Star Trek was the first show in America and probably the world to show an interracial kiss, thats true however again there was a bit of a cop out, you see that famous civil rights milestone takes place in the episode Plato's stepchildren, where a race of mentally powerful aliens force Uhura and Kirk to kiss for there amusement while both actors kick and scream and make it clear that they ain't consenting, essentially making the message be less, love is colour blind and more only a depraved alien intelligence would be pleased by "race treason". But to be fair most of these qualifiers where studio mandates, Gene Roddenberry the original idea man for the show stated that he wanted to go further, saying if he could of got away with it he would have made Kirk and Spock gay lovers, (which might explain how this video was made).

However in the States the shows political message has also garnered some criticism, more then a few have come to believe that the USS in Enterprise stands for United Socialist Soviets and that this great new world state is run on the principals of Marx and dear old Lenin. For example the above review, where the reviewer(Chuck also known as SFDebris) spends a could chunk of time railing against the hypocrisy of the "Marxist" writers. Now I happen to like Chuck also known as SFDebris reviews a lot I think he's very clever and witty, and his jokes often hit the mark and are very dark and cynical much like my own sense of humour. And if you like Star trek or any televised science fiction you should check his reviews out and can do so here.

However on this issue Chuck, and anyone who genuinely thinks that Star Trek represents a Marxist or even a socialist future show that they really don't know what those words mean. The main evidence for the Federation are a bunch of Bolsheviks is the absence of money first explicitly stated in the reviewed episode the Neutral zone. Again this just shows a glaring lack of knowledge of Left wing ideology. Socialists and Communists, do not hate money as a concept, they argue against making the private accumulation of money as a overriding goal, and against what are called artificial or surplus profits, which are the portion of sales that go to the Capitalist (the boss/owner)1. If anything Socialists accept money as a necessary and efficient method of standardising exchanges of goods and services. In the 1900's and early 20th century there was a debate in many nations as to whether to make paper currency the norm rather then metal coins, some of the most vocal advocates of this position where members of communist and socialist groups. Owen in the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist makes a similar argument in an early chapter, as does Ernest in Iron Heel, if I remember correctly. The reason for this is simply paper is extremely cheap and renewable therefore no risk of running out, or scarcity driving up the value of the currency and thus every commodity.


Some Anarchist do want to abolish money, however they are mostly of the Natural or primitivism school of thought and advocate scrapping industry and returning to a more "natural" agrarian existence complete with the barter system of economics. So does that mean the Federation is an Anarchist Federation? no thankfully. Star Trek is not really any form of political radicalism at all. It is in fact an example of Liberal Utopianism, more closely linked to the works of Rousseau.

Now I'm going to simplify here, the basic crux of Liberal Utopianism is this, humanity is at heart "good" and strive to be better. Our "flaws" are the result of living in an imperfect environment and having incorrect education. Therefore as humanity continues to develop better technology and education we as a whole will advance until finally reaching a point where all worldly vices are controlled and then eliminated. What was the biggest impediment to enlightenment facing an American audience when Star Trek was first made? discrimination, hence why Roddenberry made the cast as diverse as possible to both show that prejudice was stupid and show that a future where we've overcome these roadblocks is possible and desirable.

Fast forward to the 1980's and we have the next generation (the one with Sir Patrick Stewart) and the Neutral Zone, I should point out that I'm not defending the episode, I hated it myself but I feel some of the criticism is misplaced and it fuels the mistaken beliefs about the shows political orientations. A big complaint about this episode is that its odd how 20th century man is not only looked down upon as primitive barbarians but where essentially only guilty of avarice. Where not even given the excuse that the Stock broker's greed caused misery and suffering to others, he likes money (a lot) and should be sneered at. Well the answer to this seemingly bizarre choice of villain? lies in its Liberal subtext, since day one the Star Trek creative team saw it as an educating tool as well as entertainment hence all the social commentary, and like all good social commentary it should be relevant to the audience which in this case where Reagan era Americans. Which is why the object of scorn for this episode is essentially a Yuppie, rather then a warlord, terrorist, bigot or religious fundamentalist, the writers probably believed that America had at least progressed past those vulgarities, and was just having problems getting of its money obsessions. This is also probably why the Next Generation shows started explicitly stating money is gone and we all work to better are selves, to once again show the humanity is with a little patience capable of "evolving" beyond this flaw just like all others before it to show the audience that life is not purely a pursuit of monetary wealth, and that the alternative may well be desirable.

TL:DR Star Trek is not Socialist or anything of the sort, get over the Red scare and next time actually read a political ideology before you start slagging it off, otherwise the only one who looks bad is you.

1: Actually looking back this isn't completely accurate a large number of Communist groups do advocate the abolition of money eventually. However at the time this was written most of the active Marxist groups I was reading about advocated several alternatives like Labour Vouchers, or credits, which to me was just another form of money with a different name. But even these groups believed in the fundamental restructuring of the economy to remove things like surplus value, and the boss worker relationship. Marxism is not "right lads and lasses same as normal only your not getting paid/ enjoy your vouchers" its about the common ownership of the economy and the abolition of economic and social hierarchy.

Forget me Knot

Just got back from the Cleethorpes Memorial service for workers on International workers Memorial Day. Despite the melancholy nature of the event I think it went pretty well. The weather was good, nice and sunny with a cooling sea breeze, and there was a big turnout, with delegates and speakers from the local Labour group both Council and party, every Trade Union operating in our region (North East Lincolnshire, and North Lincolnshire there's a bit of an overlap) relatives of some of those killed in work related accidents in our area Unfortunately Northern Lincolnshire, is above the national average in this regard due to the towns Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham and the surrounding villages are home to a large number of refineries and chemical plants, which contribute to the injuries and deaths from warehouse and factory accidents. There was even a delegation from the local Liberals ,well only two of them, but to there credit these two had supporting the event and the campaign for recognition before that, and kept the speech non-partisan so I have no objections to there attendance. Strangely though no local Tories turned up, maybe they collectively had a scheduling mishap, perhaps something had gone awry with the royal wedding preparations? or they didn't fancy having to answer for the ConDems "Easing business regulation" plans that will gut Health and Safety measures on our docks, airports and transport hubs? who can say if they won't.

Unfortunately since this was a memorial service it wasn't long before the content started to but dampen the mood. 151 killed in work related deaths in UK last year, and that figure does not include those killed while driving, or those whom have succumb from a work related injury or illness contracted several years prior. And an estimate of 2 million killed on the job globally. The speakers made a very good point, if every work related death received an eighth of the media attention that are service men receive when then sadly are killed in relation to there work (funny since the army used to a few years ago advertise the statistics that your more likely to be killed in a civilian occupation then as a front-line servicemen)then there would be a lot more pressure on government and employers to clean up there act.

If a country lost two million in a year due to war, there would be a lot of questions being asked to why, are the Generals incompetent? is the equipment or training inadequate? and what solutions are being offered to prevent next years 2 million casualties. But alas work related injury and deaths do not receive much attention, outside of the Morning Star. I couldn't even find details about today's service in the local paper I had to ring up a friend and double check the starting time.

Even big global disasters that are guaranteed to sell copies and get viewers usually ignore the human costs, like the Oil rig of the coast of the US, how much time was spent on the 11 workers killed in the explosion before the "mainstream" newsreaders started discussing things like stock hits and loss of confidence? not much. They didn't even bother covering the environmental impact in detail until heartbreaking pictures of oil covered animals started coming in. Nor did they show much interest in the loss of livelihoods suffered by the small fishermen and local business until people started getting angry and the issue of compensation numbering in the hundred millions started to turn a few heads.

In short we must as this memorial day implores us, remember the dead and continue to fight for the living.