Day 4249: Ecuadorean Standoff

Sunday:


The Foreign Office's recent threat to INVADE ECUADOR was a new LOW, managing to break the LIBERAL Principle of internationalism, the CONSERVATORY Principle of maintaining traditional values and the REALPOLITIK principle of not giving anyone else the excuse to do it back to us, all at once!

Mr Vague was clearly having an OFF DAY or (more likely in the middle of August) a DAY OFF. Thankfully, it seems we’ve backed down. But we NEVER should have said that.

But aside from that (Mrs Lincoln) how was the THEATRE surrounding the Eva Peron of the Embassy: Mr Julian Estrange?

What more is there to say, really?

On the one fluffy foot, there are a lot of people who believe that he is facing very serious accusations of sexual assault against two Swedish women. To be fair, that’s not a statement of belief – it’s a statement of fact.

On the other fluffy foot, there are another lot of people who are convinced that Mr Estrange is potentially in danger of being whisked away to Americaland and quite possibly executed to death.

So what we have to do is weigh the ACTUAL HARM that has ALLEGEDLY HAPPENED against the POTENTIAL HARM that MIGHT HAPPEN and might be greater or might not even happen at all.

If ONLY we had some kind of SYSTEM where independent arbiters could be appointed to look into this and, er, JUDGE which course of action is right.

The case has been distinctly NOT helped by some of Mr Estrange's (self-appointed) advocates trying to suggest that there might be some circumstances where inserting your willy into a woman when she doesn't want you to might be (brace yourselves) "a bit less rapey" than others.

These people need to read what Mr Andrew has to say:

The ONLY way you should ever end a sentence that starts “It’s not rape if…” is with “all parties involved consent.”

The question of whether Mr Estrange has committed a criminal act is properly one for the COURTS of SWEDEN to decide, and that is what the Swedish police were trying to do.

The question of criminality, though, however STUPID the things people are saying might be, is at least more to the POINT than the wider excuse being used, namely that Mr Estrange is FAMOUS and has CROSSED AMERICALAND and so should not have to face charges at all.

It is almost certainly TRUE that Mr Estrange IS deeply disliked by the government (and probably most of the people) of Americaland because he was behind the Wikileaks website revealing all their secrets and deeply embarrassing them.

And Americaland does NOT have a good record of behaving in a JUST and LIBERAL manner to people who deeply embarrass them. The treatment of the soldier who LEAKED the Wikileak sounds dreadful. And we all know that Guantanamo Bay has become a byword for American contempt for international law and due process. Nor has President Barry O covered himself in glory on this issue, pursuing a policy of raining death on anyone his government decides is a terrorist. (NOT, so far, including Mr Estrange.)

And it is ALSO true that SHADY governments (up to and including OURS) have been more than happy to manufacture allegations of SEXUAL IMPROPRIETY and MORAL CORRUPTION against "enemies of the state" because it's much more convenient to ruin someone's reputation than martyr them for freedom. It is sufficiently common an idea as to have been used in BBC Sci-fi "Blake's Seven", where the TOTALITARIAN Federation – yes, like the one in “Star Trek” – has rebel leader Roj Blake all ready to plead guilty to sedition when he learns he's actually banged up on charges of child abuse.

But just because it COULD happen does not mean that is HAS happened. Fortunately for Blake's Seven we KNOW that Mr Blake is all heroic and honest because we've seen what really happened. That's NOT the case here – we do not KNOW if Mr Estrange is guilty as charged or guilty of being fitted up.

Again, if ONLY we had a SYSTEM for deciding whether the Swedish have a sound basis for wanting to put him before their own courts.

Oh, wait, we do...

Because Mr Estrange has made all of these arguments before and has lost at every stage of his appeal. You may very well think that the prosecutor was over-zealous in this case, or that the Swedish police have been heavy-handed in demanding extradition, or you may feel that the police SHOULD come to the accused criminal or that governments SHOULD agree to the terms imposed on them by suspects... but the fact is these things have been examined and found to be acceptable within the rule of law.

Check out these five MYTHS about Mr Estrange's case – line them up and shoot them down.

So his supporters are reduced to claiming it is ALL an establishment plot against him.

A conspiracy that takes in the Swedish police and prosecutors, several British courts, and the CIA NOT kidnapping someone off the streets of London when they can... well, it's certainly one for the Internet theorists.

(Though admittedly it's not quite up there with that one about the Olympic Stadium being built on a confluence of LEY LINES so that the GIANT LIZARDS who SECRETLY RUN THE WORLD could FAKE an ALIEN INVASION under cover of the CLOSING CEREMONY in order to institute a WORLD GOVERNMENT in fulfilment of the MASONIC PROPHECIES of WILLIAM BLAKE.)

But this is a case where NO ONE is going to WIN.

Of COURSE Mr Estrange ought to go back to Sweden, for all the reasons stated that is the proper place to decide his case. There are two women in Sweden – and a man in the Ecuadorean Embassy! – who have a right to justice. And I completely sympathise with Auntie Caron for her passion to see justice done.

But I’m afraid I have to agree with Mr Stephen O’the Glenn that we must respect International Law FIRST.

You CANNOT uphold the law by BREAKING it.

ALL THREE of those people are being denied justice. But we cannot break into the Ecuadorean Embassy to enforce that. Not because of any potential harm to Mr Estrange, but because of all the potential harms caused if we toss aside the Vienna Convention that says that once you're inside an embassy you are SAFE.

So Mr Estrange has escaped to Ecuador (no matter that it's a bit of Ecuador in the middle of London). A huge police presence around the embassy is a waste of resources and he could STILL get away in a big enough diplomatic bag; and sabre-rattling makes us look pathetic.

There are lots of STRONG ACTIONS that we can suggest… NONE of which we will be able to take!

So let's just leave him there, and much good may it do him.

Day 2522: Just Who ARE the Fascists Here?

Tuesday (again):


This one's for Mr Jonny who reports LIVE, and thankfully still ALIVE, from the scene of the Oxford tussle.

Almost all of the people going to the Oxford Union last night were going in order to refute, denounce and generally take a stand against the policies of the British Nasty Party and the stories of Mr Irving that deny the horror of the holocaust.

Almost all of the people shouting and screaming and intimidating outside were trying to stop them from doing that.

So you have to ask: which side were "Unite Against Fascism" actually on?

What is FASCISM, anyway?

That turns out to be a much more VERY difficult question than you would have thought.

Let me ask someone VERY CLEVER: Mr Doctor Umberto Eco, the famous author and thinker. Because he was born in Italy in 1932 he is just old enough to have had a bit of PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of REAL Fascists.

Writing for the New York Review of Books in 1995, Dr Eco presented his SPOTTERS’ GUIDE to Fascist Regimes. (God Save the Queen, etc.)

The thing about Fascism, argues Dr Eco, is not that it is INTELLECTUALLY COHERENT – because it is SERIOUSLY not – but that it is sufficiently FUZZY to cover a number of brands of totalitarianism.

So Dr Eco sets out, in fourteen steps, how Fascism works. You start with NOSTALGIA for a better past and ASSERT that this gives you the ANSWERS to the problems of the present. Rejection of the "modern" means turning your back on REASON and INTELLECTUALISM. You draw a power base from the FRUSTRATED lower middle class by exploiting their FEAR of anything DIFFERENT. To exploit that FEAR you need to pin the blame on an ENEMY.

What you end up with, then, looks like Fascism. In simple terms, it is an authoritarian movement, characterised by (a) making an excessive virtue of traditional national identity and (b) putting the blame for national ills on some token group who are responsible for some "plot" against the nation, see (a). They are often, but not always, based around a charismatic leader figure who uses a mass of organised "foot soldiers" to participate in intimidation tactics – verbal or physical – to silence any alternative views. Typically strength and unity are valued ABOVE individual rights and freedoms.

Being based on UN-reason and ANTI-intellectualism means that most of your ideas don't stand up to INQUIRY. So intolerance of argument comes fitted AS STANDARD. Furthermore, opposing the brain means worshipping the body, and emphasis is placed on the PHYSICAL over the INTELLECTUAL. Hence the use of force to prevent dissent.

It could also be said that ever since World War Part Two, the word "FASCISTS" has been a convenient universal shorthand for "THE BADDIES".


"Unite Against Fascism" – which is, frankly, the same as saying as "Fascists Against Unity" – identify the elements of "extreme nationalism" (i.e. Mr British Nasty Nick Griffin) and "sinister imaginary conspiracy" (i.e. Mr Storyteller Irving). These crucial features certainly could identify Nasty Nick and the Idiot Irving as WANNABE Fascists IF they were the ones with a massed rabble bullying other students and storming the Union building.

BUT under these circumstances, Nasty Nick and the Idiot Irving ALSO serve as the scapegoats, the "enemy" with their "imaginary plot" against all our "traditional national virtues".

The key factor here is: "DISAGREEMENT = TREASON". Anyone, anyone at all, who disagrees with the protesting League Against Fascism is identified as THE ENEMY.

Mr Nietzsche – and THERE was a man who sailed too close to the Fascist wind – Nietzsche said: "If you're going to fight with MONSTERS watch out that you don't BECOME a monster. And when you gaze into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

If you are going to use FORCE to stop people disagreeing with you… what have you become?



Having said all that, the downside is that all my definitions also appear to describe Communist Russia… or for that matter, Mr Frown and the Labour.

(You don't believe me? Check out "British Jobs for British Workers" and tell me that's NOT an appeal to the frustrated lower middle class by exploiting their fear of anything different AND making an excessive virtue of traditional national identity all in one!)

In fact, the ONLY thing that REALLY seems to differentiate Fascists from other dictatorships is the use of MILITARY CHIC! Communist dictators might parade the enormous size of their… MISSILES, but it takes yer genuine Fascist to, as Mr Mad Larry might very well put it, FETISHISE that military machismo. Uniforms in grey and tan and khaki just don't cut it; it's not until you pull on the thigh high boots, armbands and black, black leather that you can say you've REALLY made it.

REAL Fascism is a very VISUAL ideology. Sad anoraks like Nasty Nick and Irving sneaking in and out simply do not measure up.

Day 2519: Why the Oxford Union is Right about Free Speech

Saturday:


Mr Jonny makes the case for Freedom of Speech applying to people we would rather not hear. But I want to go further.

Free Speech is not, and cannot, JUST be about the right to say things that other people find objectionable; it must ALSO include our right to HEAR what is said, so that we can REBUT it.

When something is PARTICULARLY POISONOUS, it is more important than ever that it BE rebutted. But how can you make a COUNTER ARGUMENT if you pretend that it doesn’t exist? Worse, how will anyone even THINK of a counter argument it if you stop them from knowing what is being said?

A case in point takes place at the Oxford Union this week.

The Oxford Union – a students’ junior House of Commons debating club, not to be confused with the Oxford University Students’ Union – are hosting a Free Speech Forum. The guests include leader of the British Nasty Party, Mr Nick Griffin, and Mr David Irving who can best be described as a “storyteller” (since the word “historian” is usually used to describe people who describe events that are true). These invites have been triggered outrage and protests from the University’s Jewish Society and the Oxford University Students’ Union – a students’ welfare organisation not to be confused with the Oxford Union.


The policies of the British Nasty Party – that all the ills of the country can be blamed on the immigration of people from other countries, especially if they are of a different colour – are not just wrong, they are stupid and short sighted and amazingly ill-thought out and people need very much to know what they ARE.

And not least because we should be able to spot it when, sometimes, more ELECTABLE parties might try to hint at policies from that agenda too.

Making up a version of the past where the German Nasty Party somehow did not set out deliberately to murder millions of Jews and gypsies and gay daddies and Slavs and disabled people and pretty much anyone else they thought were looking at them funny, is just AMAZINGLY offensive, and people need to know that attempts to airbrush genocide out of history are being made.

And not least because we should be able to spot it when, sometimes, more RESPECTABLE organisations might try to forget some of the people on that list too.


The call to “just not invite” these people overlooks the obvious: even it WE refuse to listen to them, SOME people will. Forcing them “underground” and making “martyrs” of them only ADDS to their sinister CACHET.

Rather than sticking our fingers in our ears, we should be using them to POINT and LAUGH.