Will Get Fooled Again

There was a big Rolling Stone article about a woman who was horrifically gang raped by a student fraternity as part of an initiation ritual. There appears to be one small problem with the article- it is complete horseshit.It wouldn't be so bad if it was the first time the press had fallen for obviously bogus claims about being gang raped by "privileged" white male college students but it isn't, as anyone who can remember the Duke Lacrosse case a few years ago can say.

If the boy who cried wolf lived today he would never run out of dupes willing to believe his lies.

Fake victimhood appears to be particularly common among left wing activists on college campuses though certainly not exclusively - there have been conservative activists who've faked attacks by violent mobs of Obama supporters as well as a Jewish activist who was the victim of a phony neo-nazi assault. This site documents almost 200 hate crime hoaxes in the USA alone.

Fake criminal attacks are only one aspect of bogus victimhood. As long time readers will know, misery memoirs are wildly popular, WH Smiths used to have a whole section devoted to "Tragic Life Stories". Quite a lot of these turned out to be fraudulent as well- there's a hilarious and brutal takedown of one of the most successful misery memoirs "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey, here. The reviewer, John Dolan, was calling "bullshit" years before it was actually exposed as a fake.

There have always been schemers and liars and that will never change, what feeds them is other people swallowing their claims wholesale. The college fakers do it because there is a large pool of people who want to believe that white, male college students are running amok and getting away with murder, the misery memoirs abound because the appetite for such melodramatic nonsense  exceeds what reality has left us with.

Big Starey Faces

A photo of the book aisle at a local supermarket:

So who buys these books ans what are the close up photos of the face meant to indicate?

Behead Those Who Insult Aslan

Liam Neeson is probably just trying to be multicultural and inclusive when he claims that Aslan the lion from the Narnia books could just as easily be Mohammed as Jesus. Whilst he may be trying to broaden the appeal of his film, if Aslan could also be Mohmammed then he is guilty of depicting Islam's prophet which does get many Muslims somewhat irate.

Remember how upset the Sudanese got when they thought someone had portrayed Mohammed as a teddy bear?

It's Different When You Do It

Like most people I have little sympathy for the publicity seeking pastor who is planning to burn some Korans to mark the anniverary of the World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks. The special pleading and double standards that have been revealed are interesting though; opposing the needlessly provocative Koran BBQ but supporting their legal right to do it is a sign of tolerance but opposing the needlessly provocative ground zero mosque but supporting the legal right to build it is a sign of bigotry.

For double standards though Anshuman Mondal is hard to top though, he explains:

The obvious precedent is the burning of The Satanic Verses in Bradford, which precipitated Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa.

To a point, because the loony pastor isn't actually calling for the Koran to be banned.

This was read by western commentators as a reprise of Nazi book-burnings, thereby indelibly associating in the liberal western imagination a relationship between Islam, fascism and totalitarianism. This was, however, a mistaken reading on at least two counts: firstly, there is no equivalence between mass book burnings organised by a powerful state and a street demonstration by marginalised working-class ethnic minority communities desperate to draw attention to their grievance when all previous attempts had failed

But the grievance was that a powerful state refused to ban books that the book burners didn't like, so the comparison is perfectly valid.

Secondly, western commentators took it literally: burning things is a common way of expressing protest in the Middle East and South Asia, especially within the context of regimes that are brutally draconian in policing public protest. In such situations, there is a tacit understanding between protesters and authorities alike that burning things (effigies and other countries' flags, mostly) is a form of symbolic expression that contains rather than unleashes violent sentiment

OK this is fair enough, burning is symbolic, fair enough. Sometimes things can be taken too seriously. So:

It's interesting to compare this to US sensitivity toward flag burning. Attempts to prohibit burning the US flag have a long history, and legislation prohibiting flag burning was on the statutes of 48 states until the supreme court struck them all down as unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment in 1989. Such is the importance of "protecting the flag" to Americans that every sitting Congress since has tried, in fact, to amend the constitution to allow flag protection laws only to be thwarted by the senate.

The Americans take burning things a bit too seriously, I get that.

It is not clear whether Pastor Jones has the burning of The Satanic Verses in mind as he prepares for DWOC's brief moment in the spotlight. It does not matter because symbolic incineration has become part of the lexicon of western media coverage of Islam, replayed endlessly on his television screen. In his mind he is probably fighting fire with fire; that is, he feels he is responding in a language "they" understand. The irony, of course, is that he misunderstands the idiom he is appropriating. It is a dangerous irony, though: mistranslations and misunderstandings can have dramatic effects, as the Rushdie affair demonstrated.

Nevertheless, Pastor Jones has upped the ante. Burning the Qur'an is guaranteed to provoke Muslim outrage. To believers, every word in it is the word of God, each verse is a sign (ayat) of the divine. They therefore treat each copy as a holy artefact. Whatever their relationship to other symbols, they do not take these ones lightly.

Right, so when Islamists burn things that are considered important in the West it is symbolic and should be taken in context however when people in the West burn items considered to be important by Islamists then really they should know better because it will inevitable cause outrage.

Cringe Inducing Prose Of The Week

One of many excerpts from Tony Blair's book:

I heard an interesting example of this once from, of all people, Nelson Mandela. Mandela - or Madiba as he is also called (his clan name) - is a fascinating study, not because he’s a saint but because he isn’t. Or rather he is, but not in the sense that he can’t be as fly as hell when the occasion demands. I bet Gandhi was the same.

Or this one where as one of the commentators at the FT's blog points out he sounds as if "Middle East Peace Process" is a euphemism for his penis:

The biggest problem with the Middle East peace process is that no one has ever gripped it long enough or firmly enough. The gripping is intermittent, and intermittent won’t do. It doesn’t work. If it was gripped, it could be solved.

I Can Read

I've added a couple of reviews to my Amazon page- Jared Diamond's Collapse along with Noel Malcolm's Kosovo- A Short History. I may add a couple more in the next few days depending on how much time I have.

Bibliophiles Unimpressed.

In the comments to the previous post "It's Either Banned Or Compulsory" points to the recent reviews for Derek Draper's book over at Amazon.

More Me.

On the subject of reviewing stuff, I've added a couple more book reviews to my Amazon page for the first time in a year, I'll probably add a few more book reviews at the weekend including:

• Crazy Horse & Custer by Stephen Ambrose
• The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story by Steven Oppenheimer
• Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror by Richard Miniter.
• Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner.
  

Good News.

It appears that "Tragic Life Stories" are on their way out!

Tragic Life Stories

The trend that began in the 1990s of publishers signing up any writers who could tell write memoirs documenting their childhood abuse or other suffering has become ridiculous. I was in WH Smiths today and discovered that their book department has a whole bookcase devoted to the category of "Tragic Life Stories". Actually googling the phrase reveals that others have noticed this development too. You've got to feel sorry for all the budding authors whose parents neglected to molest them thus depriving them of a future career.

.My computer problems are still ongoing so blogging will continue to be sporadic until next week. Sorry to both my readers for that. This story of ongoing computer faults isn't tragic enough to land me a book deal though.

Fascism & The Political Spectrum.

Having seen a lot of blog discussions of late discussing whether groups that are frequently referred to as 'far right' actually are on the right of the political spectrum I'll throw in my penny's worth. The debate is an old one but the latest round appears to have been kicked off by Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism". As I've taken part in a couple of discussions so a summary will be useful for me to write. Several points should be made, firstly that the revolutionary regimes of Hitler and Mussolini were quite different from the reactionary regimes of Franco and the various Latin American juntas, they are only grouped together because of their anti communism. The Franco type regimes could be said to embody a certain ultra traditionalist trend that is identified with the continental right, although it has little in common with the Anglo Saxon right of conservatism and classical liberalism. Even then they weren't exclusively right wing, the Falange for example was split between a Socialist and a Traditionalist wing.

Secondly the tying liberalism to fascism only makes sense if you use the American definition of 'liberal' which includes everything from Social Democrats, to Socialists, to Communists. Liberal in the British or European sense includes a lot of strands of thought that are closer to libertarianism than anything else. That said Jorg Haider's 'Freedom Party' did for a long time belong to 'Liberal International' the grouping that our own dearly beloved Liberal Democrats are members of.

Despite those two provisos it is obvious to me that Jonah Goldberg is right in saying that Hitler and Mussolini did not represent movements of the right. Well I haven't actually read Goldberg's book but I gather from his critics that actually reading the book is unnecessary in order to understand it. Economically the Nazis were obviously left wing, their manifesto resembles that of most major socialist parties when it comes to the role of the state in society:

11 That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12 Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13 We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
14 We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
15 We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
16 We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalisation of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small trades people, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
17 We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
18 We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.
19 We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.
20 In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
21 The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centres, by prohibiting juvenile labour, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

They didn't implement all of these policies, but that doesn't show that they didn't believe in them merely that Hitler's priority was war and genocide first, the economy later. In Britain we look back on the likes of British Leyland as examples of how widespread socialism was in the 1970s, yet the left like to dismiss the nationalised German car industries of the 1930s as irrelevant.

Communists are described as far left because they represent a more extreme and authoritarian version of the mainstream left, both regard the goal of equality as paramount and set about achieving it, though with much less coercion in the democratic world. Taking various right wing concepts (capitalism, stability, anti-populism) to their logical extreme does not end up with anything resembling fascism. In some ways fascism was contrary to left wing thought and was more cautious in throwing off their domestic order than communists were so whilst they aren't far right, their form of non-Marxist socialism can't simply be described as far left. If anything with the desire to be all things to all men it would be best thought of as a centrist philosophy applied with extreme ruthlessness. The far centre doesn't make geometric sense if you consider the political spectrum to be a straight line of course but that's an issue of representation.

£1274.25

That's a bloody expensive book. Speaking of book buying I'm thinking that now would be a good time to go down to Waterstones and begin my Christmas shopping, so that my choice of gifts isn't dependent on what I can get in Texaco at 10:00 on Christmas day.

Ghostwriter Needed....

John Prescott is planning on 'writing' his memoirs, and colouring them in too.

Along with his political achievements, such as working towards the Kyoto protocol on climate change, his memoirs would be expected to tell the inside story on other events that had pushed him into the headlines.

His political achievements! Holding on to grace and favour properties despite being sacked from the functional aspects of his job is an achievement of sorts I guess.

And his memoirs will be scrutinised by political analysts wanting to understand the relationship between former prime minister Tony Blair and present incumbent, Gordon Brown.

Or trying to understand what on earth he is saying, reading hieroglyphs is easier work than comprehending a Prescott sentence.

An Apology.

Look I've just read the most recent Harry Potter book and I'm afraid to say I haven't been able to figure out how to make a tendentious argument about how it is an analogy for my own political beliefs.

Confusing Butterfly Bookcase Design..

Al Gore's new book, 'The Assault On Reason' is coming out soon. Sadly given the known intelligence of Al Gore supporters it seems inevitable that many of them are going to buy Pat Buchanan's 'Death of the West' inadvertently due to the confusing order forms they have to fill in.

Book Reviews.

In the right hand column of this blog I have put a link to my book reviews at Amazon, I have only just started them so there aren't many yet, but it will grow.

Books & Stuff.

The first page on the books 'Recommended for You' at Amazon at the moment, based on previous purchases and ratings has the following 15 titles:

• The New Thought Police ~ Tammy Bruce
• The Men Who Stare At Goats ~ Jon Ronson
• A Matter Of Life & Death ~ Andrey Kurkov
• The Bumper Book Of Government Waste ~ Matthew Elliott, Lee Rotherham, others.
• A Spin Doctors Diary ~ Lance Price
  
• The Call Of The Weird ~ Louis Theroux
• DC Confidential ~ Christopher Meyer
• While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying The West From Within ~ Bruce Bawer
  
• The Welfare State We're In ~ James Bartholomew
• The Roads To Modernity: The British, French and American Enlighenments - Gertrude Himmelfarb
• The Slave Trade ~ Hugh Thomas
• Smell The Coffee: A Wakeup Call To The Conservative Party ~ Michael Ashcroft
• Celsius 7/7 ~ Michael Gove
• All Must Have Prizes ~ Melanie Phillips

So if anyone has read any of those and can leave a comment with their opinion on whether they are worth buyingm please do so.

Chip On His Shoulder.

I'm currently reading Antony Beevor's 'Berlin - The Downfall 1945' and thought I would have a look at some of the reviews of his other books on Amazon. This comment about a previous work, Stalingrad, was wonderful:

The author has a massive chip on his shoulder about both Hitler and Stalin