Radio Free Neptune

2004-08-09T18:20:00.000+01:00

One of the interesting things in Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 is an excerpt from a speech given by G. W. Bush to some crowd of rich people. He starts by describing his audience as 'the haves... and the have-mores.' Then he observes that 'some people call you the elite. I call you my base.'
So if you don't believe that the class struggle is real, congratulate yourself - you have a worse grasp of politics than President Dumbfuck.

2004-07-31T13:12:00.000+01:00

The world's oldest, richest and most powerful paedophile ring is to offer an official position on the relations between men and women. It will no doubt bring comfort and joy to all those who loathe human sexuality and the miniscule advances won by feminists over recent decades.

2004-07-20T22:58:00.000+01:00

Oona King, terrified Nu-Labour MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, has been scouting for new careers just in case her 'safe' Labour seat goes the way of Leicester South at the next election. Yesterday she presented BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, rather badly. Since she voted for the war, apparently with the idea of improving the Israel / Palestine situation, many of her constituents have turned against her. Her almost uninterrupted campaigning in the St. Dunstan's ward of Stepney for the council election shows how rattled she is about the loss of faith among her core supporters, who showed such strong support for Respect on June 10th. There are dozens of Labour MPs in the same position, for whom a 'score draw' at the next election will mean retirement.

2004-06-23T14:00:00.000+01:00

ASBOs - they're not dark swellings in the armpits of plague victims, they're Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. They were invented by the current government in order to make life for urban teens even more miserable than it already is, so it must have come as a surprise to senior executives at Sony UK when Camden Borough Council applied to Highbury Magistrates' Court to slap an ASBO on them. Sony has irked the good burghers of Camden by using fly-posting companies to promote acts such as [sub - find out what young people are listening to], by illegally sticking posters up on anything flat.
The case was due to be heard on Monday, but Sony gave a written promise not to use the illegal advertising method any more in England or Wales, and Camden Council withdrew the action. A similar action against BMG UK is still with m'learned friends.
The Earth Desk's legal expert confidently expects that Sony will give a wheelbarrowful of cash to Nu Labour and then break all its promises, but in the meantime the only people to benefit will be the SWP, who won't have their posters inciting revolution pasted over by showbiz ones. Could Camden Council's ASBO threat be the spark?

2004-06-22T09:08:00.000+01:00

On the Today programme this morning Lord Tebbit was interviewed about Clinton's autohagiography - and his lordship failed to rant about buggery, as he did the last time he gave his keepers the slip. This lapse is a great cause for concern. One hopes he is not unwell.

2004-06-21T09:25:00.000+01:00

The government has responded to the 'pensions crisis', the economic / demographic trends which mean that a livable retirement pension is not going to be there for today's twenty and thirty-somethings, by planning to increase the retirement age to seventy, for those who wish to continue working past 65. As your joints stiffen, you contribute to labour market flexibility - clever, no? And it's all done using the language of choice - if you've chosen to be poor, you'll want to choose to work until you drop.

2004-06-18T12:36:00.000+01:00

The historic decision of the FBU to disaffiliate with the Labour Party is significant not for the size of the £50,000 per year contribution which will no longer be paid, but for the way it came about. It would almost certainly have happened last year, but the leadership of the union prevented a vote taking place - by suspending the annual conference. This year, the leadership proposed to cut the contribution to £20,000 but remain affiliated. The delegates were having none of it, and the disaffiliation was voted through by over 2:1, on the grounds that 'he aims and objectives of the party no longer reflected those of the FBU.'
The loss of further union funding would be a blow to Labour. The RMT was expelled in February when they voted to allow branch-level donations to 'other parties' (the SSP in Scotland), and as early as 2001 the GMB was cutting its funding.
The proportion of party funds which come from the unions has been dropping, from 66% in 1992, to 40% in 1997, to 33% in 2002, with the majority now coming from 'individual and corporate donations, membership fees, sponsorship and commercial events,' but Labour must fear that large donors will be fair-weather friends, and the membership is likely to be haemorrhaging like an Iraqi wedding party.

2004-06-18T10:51:00.000+01:00

The Blair government, taking a break from bringing democracy and self-determination to others, has tried again to finally suppress the hopes of the Chagos islanders. The entire archipelago was emptied of people, who were moved from their homes thirty years ago to make way for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. They have taken various legal actions, and won a partial victory in 2000, but the Foreign Office has just issued an 'order in coucil' to bar them from returning to any of the islands. The order in council is a debate-free way to pass laws, or perhaps decrees is a better word.
On Radio 4 yesterday, the minister responsible justified the unjustifiable by talking about the expense of repatriating the islanders, and by alluding to the uncertain future of tropical islands due to global warming. He claimed that the US's 'defence needs' have also increased since 9-11, implying that people's 'human rights needs' will have to decrease in the War on Turrism.
The spirit of justice still burns fiercely in nu-Labour, it seems.

2004-06-16T11:34:00.000+01:00

There are some interesting data in a mid-May CPA poll of over 1000 Iraqis.
The explanation of attacks on US forces which was most agreed with was that the attackers 'believe the Coalition is trying to steal Iraqis wealth' (78% thought this totally or partially true, to 7% who thought it false.)
Other explanations seen as true were 'they believes all foreign forces must leave at once' (74%: 11%), and 'they believe national dignity requires the attacks' (68%: 13%)
The least likely explanations were those usually promulgated by the US and UK politicians:
'they want to return to Saddam and the Ba'ath Party' (20%: 61%),
'they are angry because they lost the privileges they had under Saddam' (32%: 48%), and
'they do not want democracy in Iraq' (38%: 48%).
The question on confidence in different institutions also made grim reading for the CPA:
78% of those polled had no confidence in the CPA, and 81% had none in the Coalition forces. The Governing Council and the UN inspired no confidence in 55% and 57% respectively, and the Iraqi police came out best, with 76% having a fair amount or a great deal of confidence in them. This is reflected in the response to other questions about security: 87% thought it likely or very likely that the Iraqi police and army could keep order on their own, and 55%:32% of those polled would feel more rather than less safe if foreign troops left immediately - foreign troops were seen as occupiers by 92%.
Meanwhile, with the purely paper excercise of the transfer of sovereignty only two weeks away, oil exports have been crippled after attacks on pipelines in both north and south, and three senior Iraqi officials have been killed in the last week: the head of security for the northern oilfields yesterday, after the Deputy Foreign Minister on Saturday, and the Education Ministry's Director of Cultural Relations on Sunday.
The British Prime Minister, the increasingly unhinged Tony Blair, responded to the Iraq-related hammering the voters gave him by saying (about his decision to join the American attack) 'the judgement will increasingly be seen to be to be right as time goes on.'

2004-06-14T08:39:00.000+01:00

From the Strange Observations department: Outside the UK headquarters of News International, Rupert Murdoch's empire of lies, is a row of flagpoles. The first flies the union jack, the next four fly flags with the logos of the Sun, Times, etc., and the last one flies... the EU flag of yellow stars in a circle on a blue field.

2004-06-09T09:30:00.000+01:00

The Information Commissioner reported yesterday on Blunkett's proposed ID card scheme - and was rightly scathing. Describing it as 'not an identity card, but a national identity register,' he criticised it as a 'really significant sea-change in the relationship between the state and every individual.' He viewed this change with 'increasing alarm,' and noted that the plans were 'more comprehensive and ambitious than any other scheme in the world.'
However, since people under capitalism can best be seen as commodities, it makes sense to give them all bar-codes. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Oh, except computer errors. And the recent legitimation of torture by the global ruler, to whom Blair has tied himself. But apart from that, you have nothing to fear.

2004-06-08T15:39:00.000+01:00

In Tony Blair's interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, he made a variety of risible statements, the worst of which was that Saddam turned out (after the fall of Baghdad) to be even more of a threat than the coalition thought before the invasion began.
Now, as a politician who has got to the top, Blair must have passed his Lying 101 course, and he should know that a key to succesful lying is that the truth of the issue should not be readily apparent to anyone over three years old. Comical Ali fell foul of this principle too, when announcing that Americans were nowhere near Baghdad while their tanks were trundling along behind him.
However for Blair, as for Ali, there is no fall-back position other than capitulation. Blair has completely dropped the 'Third Way' nonsense of his late opposition and early premiership, which is exploded even as a 'salutary myth'. His complete alignment with the demented Bush regime makes self-identification in a mid-position between corporate capitalism and socialism (even of the feeblest parliamentary kind) impossible. The Third Way, always vacuous, has vanished to be replaced by blatant kow-towing to the hegemony of capital, adorned with a sickly icing of simpering.
This is why Blair has to make assertions such as the one this morning. His rejection of ideology (and even history) means that his brand-image is the whole of his politics - the surface is the core; he is an authentic vacuum. Hence his 'integrity' now consists of telling lies that he knows that we know are lies, because he told them before.

2004-06-07T15:35:00.000+01:00

An interesting article by Slavoj Zizek, on a new category of Earthling, Homo Sacer, here.

2004-06-06T01:04:00.000+01:00

Former President Ronald Reagan has died.
This Earth Desk correspondent started studying Earth politics in the era when almost the whole of the world's thermonuclear arsenal was in the hands of two vegetables - between 1980, when Reagan came to power, and 1984 when Leonid Brezhnev died, life on Earth was balanced on a knife-edge - remember Reagan's 'bombing begins in five minutes' joke?
Other things to remember Ronnie for are the huge increase in military spending in peacetime, wrecking the US economy for the sole purpose of transferring tax dollars to military contractors, and for the filthy terrorism perpetrated (especially) against school-teachers and medical workers in Nicaragua, illegally funded by selling weaponry to extremists in Iran, and by flooding US cities with cocaine.
Good fucking riddance, Ronnie; rot quickly.

2004-06-01T16:44:00.000+01:00

Today, Radio Free Neptune is taking a day off from poking despairing fun at Earth's jaw-droppingly delusional poiliticians, and providing a public information bulletin on everyone's favorite strategic resources, hydrocarbons.

Ten largest proven oil reserves by country (2002, in billions of barrels, b bl)

263 - Saudi Arabia

115 - Iraq

99 - Iran

97.8 - UAE

96.5 - Kuwait

78 - Venezuela

78 - Former USSR

36 - Libya

31.5 - Nigeria

22.4 - USA

The world's two most populous countries, China and India have 18.25 b bl, and 5.3 b bl of oil reserves respectively.

Proven oil reserves by region (2002, b bl)

698.9 - Middle East

111.1 - Latin America

93.5 - Africa

79.1 - Eastern Europe

38.4 - Asia and Pacific

27.6 - North America

18.2 - Western Europe

World total, 2002, was 1067 b bl.

Ten largest proven natural gas reserves (2002, in billions of cubic metres)

56,900 - Former USSR

26,600 - Iran

25,800 - Qatar

6,600 - Saudi Arabia

6,000 - UAE

4,200 - Venezuela

4,500 - Algeria

4,500 - Nigeria

3,500 - Australia

3,100 - Iraq

Fifteen largest oil producers (2002, in millions of barrels / day)

8.8 - Former USSR

7.1 - Saudi Arabia*

5.8 - USA

3.4 - China

3.2 - Iran

3.1 - Mexico

2.9 - Norway

2.4 - Venezuela

2.2 - United Kingdom

2.1 - Iraq

1.9 - UAE

1.8 - Nigeria

1.7 - Kuwait

1.4 - Canada

1.4 - Brazil

*Saudi Arabia is now producing ~8.5 m bl / day, with ~1.5 m bl / day unused production capacity. It is the only country with significant unused capacity.

Global consumption rate, 2002 - 72.8 million barrels / day

Ten largest consumers (2002, in millions of barrels / day of refined products)

19.5 - USA

5.0 - Japan

5.0 - China

3.7 - Former USSR

2.6 - Germany

2.1 - India

2.0 - South Korea

1.9 - France

1.8 - Italy

1.6 - United Kingdom

Opec members

Algeria

Indonesia

Iran

Iraq

Kuwait

Libya

Nigeria

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

United Arab Emirates

Venezuela

Opec's 2002 Statistics Bulletin (150 page pdf, 2.0 Mb) can be downloaded here.

2004-06-01T12:47:00.000+01:00

A pundit on Radio Five has just observed, concerning rising oil prices, that there is 'no need for an emergency dash to the pumps yet' - very reassuring for R5's core audience of people serving long sentences in traffic jams.

2004-05-30T19:56:00.000+01:00

Professional liar and tottering fool General Kimmit has announced that the Iraqi people will forgive the occupation forces' torture of prisoners, in an early bid for this week's arrogant idiocy prize. (no, since you ask, he didn't use the t-word, nor the phrase 'copper green'.)
"It's because the scale of this was so small that the people of Iraq will forgive us," he mouthshat.
Forgiveness is unlikely when the occupying forces continue to kill innocent Iraqis, and then act with monstrous self-satisfaction concerning the dead, who automatically become turrists - an example being Kimmit's continuing lies about the slaughtered wedding-party in the very same press conference.

2004-05-29T21:00:00.000+01:00

A BBC reporter for Radio 4's PM programme found an Iraqi with a cautiously positive opinion of the probable PM-to-be, Iyad Allawi. The Iraqi chap said he'd give him a chance, and noted that it is good that Allawi was well educated. That citizens respect education is a good sign for democracy, but less suitable for the puppetocracy that the US usually implements.
Allawi, a founder member of the Iraqi National Accord (a rival organization to Chalabi's INC), certainly knows how to play politics - he has been spending lavishly on Washington lobby firms, and has kept up a better relationship with the CIA than Chalabi did. MI6 might have a less friendly view of him, as the INA was the source of the '45-minute' claim which idiot Blair shouted from the rooftops, but British influence in Iraq is negligible.
How the majority of Iraqis will see the Allawi - a former senior Ba'ath Party official who has not lived in Iraq for thirty years - remains to be seen.

2004-05-29T15:29:00.000+01:00

Signs of panic at the top levels of both the UK and US governments are now unmistakable. The recent public contradiction between Blair's and Powell's views on Iraqi control over the occupation forces shows that they are making policy on the hoof, and are mostly concerned with public opinion in their own countries. Blair doesn't want to be seen as an imperial occupier, Powell is playing to the traditional reluctance of the US to have any US soldiers or citizens under any sort of foreign command.
Similarly unable to coordinate their propaganda are the US Department of Justice and the Homeland Security Department, which is nominally coordinating all things anti-turrist. On the same day that Ashcroft announced that al-Qaida is ready to attack the US, Tom Ridge was on ABC playing down the threats as "not the most disturbing that I have personally seen during the past couple of years."
Confusion continues to reign in occupation politics, with the UN special envoy who is supposed to be responsible for manufacturing a new government reportedly 'not even in the room' when the Iraqi PM-to-be was announced by the Iraqi Governing Council. A UN spokesman, sounding a bit crestfallen, said "It's not how we expected it to happen."
Even some of the neo-cons can see that the invasion of Iraq has not gone to plan. 'Prince of Darkness' Richard Perle has described the occupation as a 'grave error,' although his claim that Iraq should have been handed over to Iraqis sooner seems mendacious in the light of Jay Garner's revelation: early elections were blocked so that Iraqi industry could be 'privatized' (aka 'stolen').
As the slime at the top engages in random spin and self-exculpation, one calls to mind Alexis de Tocqueville's comment, as true today as it was 160 years ago:
'On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to find so much distinguished talent among the citizens and so little among the heads of government. It is a constant fact that at the present day the ablest men in the United States are rarely placed at the head of affairs.'

2004-05-27T15:44:00.000+01:00

Abu-Hamza, the loopy Imam with the pantomime appearance, has been before British magistrates today, to be hauled off to the anti-turrism gulag run by the Americans.
The dangerous US Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, described the allegations against him in some detail, and noted that the most serious - conspiracy to take hostages - carries the death penalty. Despite noting that under law, someone is innocent until proven guilty, Ashcroft referred to terrorists as 'Hamza's co-conspirators' repeatedly. Whether Hamza gets a fair trial or no, it is a much-needed positive photo op for the War On Turrism.
The extradition would be a marked change of UK government practice - usually the UK does not extradite people who face death in a foreign court (although it does deport refugees back to war zones.)
One also wonders what evidence was shown by the Americans to the British establishment. Two US-brought cases in Germany have fallen foul of the letter of the law, because the American authorities were unwilling to give the German court important evidence. The supine British establishment is so subservient to Bush's maladministration that they may not have thought to ask about evidence. After all, Abu-Hamza has one eye and a hook hand - he certainly looks like a turrist, and Blair's co-religionist John Ashcroft could do with some good publicity.

2004-05-27T11:31:00.000+01:00

A detail that didn't make the BBC website story about a warehouse fire which destroyed various modern artworks:
Tracy Emin was asked if she was upset at the destruction of some of her artworks.
"Yes," she replied, "but not as upset as I am over the people being killed in Iraq."

2004-05-25T20:58:00.000+01:00

The recent suggestions that Ahmed Chalabi, 'Hero in Error,' has been manipulating the US into furthering Iran's regional interests is bad news for the most hawkish of the junta, who have tied their success to his analysis of Iraq. They have been losing ground to (what one hesitates to call) the moderates anyway, hence Colin Powell's open criticism of the hawks, and his admission that intelligence 'sourcing' was 'deliberately misleading'. However, Powell is an oddity, not a Republican bloc - the two main factions of the Republicans are the neo-con corporate fascists, and the fundamentalist Christian right. Although many rank-and-file Republican voters are neither, the secular and fiscally prudent Republicans are weak in the upper echelons.
There are signs that the cabal of neo-cons, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle are losing influence, as everyone but themselves can now see how delusional and inept their policy has been. Although Rumsfeld seems to have weathered the initial torture outrage, General Sanchez has just been removed from Iraq (for reasons unrelated to torture, of course), and pressure will continue to mount. Feith and Wolfowitz are deeply unpopular with the military, Feith being 'the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the Earth' according to General Tommy Franks. Perle had stepped down from the Defense Policy Board in March, because the tax-dollar-nozzle was too obviously sticking into his pocket. He was on BBC Radio 4 this lunchtime, denouncing the Iran-Chalabi story and suggesting that it was being put about by the CIA, who had never liked Chalabi. He sounded a little paranoid.
Meanwhile, the Christian right are not pleased with the Bush gang either. Stem cell research, the removal of the ten commandments from that courthouse, and the removal of the 'under God' part of the pledge of allegiance in some states all show that Satan is at work in Bush's USA, and no-one has been burnt at the stake! The maladministration's response - a move to make gay marriage unconstitutional - may not be enough to cheer up the Christian right, particularly because Bush's little chum Sharon says he is giving back the Gaza Strip to Palestinians, thus delaying the second coming...

2004-05-25T19:09:00.000+01:00

Blair made a statement at the monthly news conference, saying that the Iraqi government will choose 'whether the troops stay or not,' and will have 'final political control' over actions by coalition forces. This is not backed up by the documents issued by the US. The draft UN resolution makes no mention of an Iraqi right to order the troops out, a point specifically desired even by the puppet Iraqi Governing Council. The resolution allows 'US-led forces to take "all necessary measures" to keep the peace and fight terrorism.' (Reuters.) That sounds like a blank cheque.
The BBC gives some detail about the 'transfer of power':

What happens on 30 June?
Power will transfer from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to an interim Iraqi government. The CPA will cease to exist and its head Paul Bremer will return to the United States. Formally the occupation will end.
Who will be in the interim government?
This has not yet been decided. It will be a government appointed by the CPA with the agreement of the UN and Iraqi political leaders. A United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is currently holding discussions in Iraq and he hopes to have the names well before the handover date.
What powers will the interim government have?
Very limited. It will not be able to make or change any basic law. The US and UK have however recognised that they could hardly call the government "sovereign" if it does not have the ultimate right to ask foreign troops to leave. The government will formally control oil revenues but the budget for this year has been set so its actual influence will be limited. A big US embassy will largely control the flow of US aid.
What control will the government have over security?
It will have a theoretical right to ask foreign troops to leave but will not exercise it since those likely to be in the government have supported the presence of US and other troops.

Bush yesterday gave a weak speech, and where his allies hoped for something new indicating an understanding of the seriousness of the disaster in Iraq, he merely regurgitated the same line as before; the 'exit strategy' being:
Hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government;
Help establish the stability and security in Iraq that democracy requires;
Continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure;
Encourage more international support;

Move toward free, national elections that will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people.

No-one would expect Bush to be told the details of what his administration is doing, but this simple repetition, stay-the-course, must-establish-stability tone indicates that the US is not learning from its mistakes. Response to the speech has been even more unenthusiastic than to the UN resolution.

2004-05-24T12:13:00.000+01:00

Only three days after patronizingly announcing that 'Iraqis are ready to ''take the training wheels off'' and assume political power,' President Dumbfuck has fallen off his bicycle while riding around his ranch, hurting his face. Absolutely priceless.

2004-05-24T10:37:00.000+01:00

BBC R4's Today programme interviewed Jimmy Massey, a former US Marine, who left the military after participating in the brutal occupation of Iraq and is now speaking out. He said vehicles were fired on 'time after time' at checkpoints, because troops had been told that Republican Guards had changed out of uniform, and that ambulances were being 'packed with explosives.' Pulling the trigger had 'no consequences.'
Asked if he was surprised by the Abu Ghraib 'abuses,' he said that type of abuse was 'routine in the US military. Period.'
This is only going to come as a surprise to liberal hawks, who bought the idea of humanitarian military intervention. Because the troops of the capitalist west represented 'civilization' in the form of liberal democracy, the invasion wouldn't lead to oppressive occupation. Oh no.