RedC Poll… and why Labour may be in more trouble than they think…

What an interesting poll that was on reflection… I usually dislike polls, particularly this far out from an election. But some of the figures make for interesting reading.
Labour dipping two points to 11%. Fine Gael stagnant, or static depending on one’s choice of words at 26, with Fianna Fáil losing another percentage point to 34 and the PDs on 3%. So the two putative coalitions are on 37 to 38 respectively with the balance tilted very slightly in favour of FG/Labour. Factor in local conflicts and it’s still wide open. The Greens are on 7, Sinn Féin on 9 and Independents on 9.

Now all politics is local and that covers a multitude of local conflicts which will largely shape the next Dáil. But some straws in the wind are very clear.

Simon of The Dossing Times on IrishElection.com has an intriguing analysis about this. His argument is that Labour remains becalmed because both the Greens and the left-Independents are eating into the votes that Labour should be getting, and above and beyond this Rabitte is unable to articulate a clear and popular vision as to what Labour is about. He notes that Sinn Féin is also eating into the Labour vote, but not as much as it’s affecting FF.

Cian of Where’s Me Country and also on IrishElection.com extends this analysis arguing that the reason for both strong Green and Sinn Féin party showings are due to their branding, as they both occupy very specific niches within the Irish political process, that in effect their branding is part of their success.

Finally adam of Adam’s Blog argues on IrishElection.com that although the branding argument is valid, it’s really a case of style over substance. And yet, these parties command a quite significant chunk of the electorates support.

In essence the core of this is, whatever the rights and wrongs of individual parties and policies, that there is a void on the left and Labour isn’t able to reach into it in any constructive way.

I’d certainly agree that both the Greens and the left-Independents are a factor in the continual low-ish level of Labour support, but I’d emphasise the role of Sinn Féin in all this.

Consider that SF has gobbled up almost 10% of the vote over the last eight or so years. That’s no small achievement. But what are the implications of that? Well firstly the general left/progressive/protest vote is now arguably slightly higher than it was in the early 1990s with about 37% plus if we lump independents (and yes, some are right of centre, but the dynamic of opposition politics has pushed them mostly leftwards), Labour, Sinn Féin and Green together. This is also true of the SF vote, some of which would not consider itself left-wing at all.

I hope to return to the issue of the Independents at some other time, but I’m actually surprised how well their vote is holding up.

All that’s important in itself, but it’s what’s happening to Labour which is really fascinating. Labour keeps hovering about 10-14 %. This suggests that Sinn Féin has eaten into much of it’s vote, and is effectively stifling it’s development further. This will come as no surprise to those of us who watched the demise of the old WP/DL vote over the 1990s. That vote had to go somewhere, and it sure wasn’t going to go towards Labour – indeed if ever a merged party was less than the sum of it’s parts it is the contemporary incarnation of Labour. So where did it go? Well, slowly but surely as SF – ahem – normalised it drifted there. But not just there. Clearly some went to the Greens, as Simon notes, who are doing actually rather well all things considered.

Let’s consider an MRBI poll from January 2000 (reprinted in Irish Political Studies, Vol. 16, 2001) which had party support as follows: FF 39, FG 20, Labour 9, Greens, 3, PDs 2, WP 1, SF 3, Other 3, Don’t know 13. Clearly the Don’t Know side of the fence has declined massively or gone to the Independents, but what’s fascinating is that both SF and the Greens have moved from 3 percentage points each to 9 and 7 respectively, while Independents are now a fairly permanent feature of most contemporary polls.

If I were Rabitte and Kenny I would be extremely worried about that left flank, because it’s almost impossible to see any clear way to attract those voters back into the Labour fold – Rabitte can’t tack left or he alienates FG, and tacking right is unlikely to make much impact on either Independent or other voters… But if I was them I’d also be hoping that when it comes to the crunch the Green’s will be on board if the numbers add up. And on that matter I’ll defer to those within the Green Party whose knowledge of the internal dynamic is likely to be considerably greater than my own…

Ayn Rand’s Diary (with apologies to Helen Fielding)

Monday, 17 July

12st 10, alcohol units 12 (groan!), cigarettes 12 (no better way to exemplify man’s Promethean dominance over raw, brute, nature. In fact, I vow that I will smoke twice as many tomorrow)

Spent the evening over at smug marrieds Nathaniel and Barbara Brandon’s, for a dinner party along with the rest of the ‘Collective’ (ugh! who came up with that name?).  I have to admit, despite the fact that Barbara cannot be considered a truly moral person, given that she does not earn money through creative endeavour, she certainly knows how to cook up a delicious pot roast, not to mention that lemon meringue pie of hers for pudding.

Although the evening was supposed to be a celebration of the anniversay of the death of quasi-Marxist Adam Smith, Leonard Peikoff decided that he was going to spend the entire time talking about himself (AGAIN!!!!).  Honestly, I can’t believe that I snogged him last New Year’s Eve. Still I won’t be making that mistake again, and I won’t be getting that drunk again in a hurry (she said – LOL!).

Greenspan surprised us all, with the announcement that he had been in a “serious” relationship for the past month.  That’s not like him at all – usually his little pick-ups are sent out the door before the sun comes up – so we were all rather intrigued, and pressed him for the goss’. While he clearly didn’t want to tell us, and became beetroot red with the embarrassment (reminder – write a pamphlet on why embarrassment in unworthy of the TRUE American), eventually he stammered:

‘His name is Robert. He’s an economist in the Department of Labour, and I think I’m in love with him’

You can imagine how shocked we all were. No, horrified and disgusted is probably a more accurate description of our feelings.  No one knew what to say (not even Peikoff – for a change!!!!), until I broke the silence.

‘A Keynesian, Greenspan? Have you gone completely mad? Why can’t you find yourself a real man? An industrialist, a banker or a businessman? Someone who embodies the highest virtues: productive genius, energy, initiative, independence and courage. This … this ‘functionary’ you’ve latched yourself onto is nothing more than a cog in the obscene machinery of the state, created with no other purpose than to crush human spirit and freedom and transform true men into mindless automatons.  Mark this well, Greenspan: there’s nothing worse than a Keynesian, not even a Red!’

I could tell I’d upset him. He was shivering with rage, and tears were welling up in his eyes.

‘I don’t care! I don’t care, even if he is a Red’, Greenspan squealed, ‘as long as he’s Pink in the middle!’.

He broke down sobbing, and rushed out of the room.  I started to say something, but the look on Peikoff’s face told me I mightn’t be a very good idea.  A lesser person, a serf, say, or a European, could easily have felt guilt at this point.  Luckily I’m a fully moral and independent person, and have learned (from the marvellous ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’ – definitely a must for any discerning Objectivist) to “own” my own feelings, so I knew better.

The rest of the night passed tolerably, even if Greenspan’s girlish tears did put a bit of a dampener on the celebrations.  I patched things up with him, and we agreed not to mention his unspeakable flirtation with collectivism again.  Barbara Brandon brought out a tray of Pina Coladas, and we all had a bit too much to drink.  I think Nathaniel might have a bit of a crush on me (sweet, but double-ugh!!! He’s far too young for me!!!!!!). He kept staring at me during my party piece, where I stand on the kitchen table and belt out that old Objectivist disco anthem ‘I Will Survive’.  Barbara certainly wasn’t pleased.  I overheard the two of them arguing in the kitchen later on, although my name wasn’t specifically mentioned (that might have made things awkward – just a little!!!!!!). Ha! Maybe the smug marrieds aren’t as smugly happy as they make out they are.  Serves them right for not realising that true happiness comes from the state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement  of one’s values. Idiots!

Managed to make it home somehow, and passed out on the sofa. Before falling asleep, it occurred to me that to say “I love you” one must first be able to say “I”.  However, I can say “I”, so why can’t I (or even “I”) find a boyfriend? Is it because my bum is so big?

Joe Higgins, Bertie Ahern and a walk down memory lane…

The exchanges in the Dáil last month between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins pointed up a number of uncomfortable truths about the way the popular opinion works in this country and arguably give us a few pointers as to the future.

Joe is fast assuming the mantle of something of a secular saint in the Irish body politic. He is afforded a level of media exposure which he, as a consummate professional politician, has turned to his and his party’s advantage. And it has to be said, much of this media coverage has been fairly uncritical.

I’ve heard many times how ‘Joe Higgins is great…but completely mad’. Hmmm… Quite an analysis, don’t you think? And yet, I’m willing to bet good money that were polls of our favourite politicians taken Higgins would be right up there with…with…Gerry Adams of course!

I’ve met Higgins on a number of occasions and whatever one thinks of his politics he’s an extremely pleasant and sincere person who is genuinely committed to the working class, even in it’s current slightly broader definition.

That’s not to disregard his politics. And it has to be said that the Socialist Party has a bracing ideological rigour, perhaps partially as a result of it’s membership of the Committee for a Workers’ International (and incidentally who now would argue against the proposition that the ‘open turn’ has reaped certain rewards – well Ted Grant perhaps). For those of us who remember Militant, in both it’s Labour and non-Labour forms there was a certain admirable hard-edged militancy to it which was quite unlike the SWP and other smaller groups on the left. Of course that didn’t necessarily mean it was more serious than any other group on the left, but it’s members certainly acted as though they were… although I’m always taken aback by their ‘socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales’ policy, I mean c’mon guys, let’s not put the cart before the horse.

If I sound cynical, I don’t mean to be – I genuinely admire them (although you won’t see me joining up), but I’m not sure that applying a Trotskyite template to 21st century society is going to work any better than the Stalinist variant of the 20th century, and it’s a pity they don’t use the hammer and sickle with the 4 in it rather than their slightly insipid star with a whoosh beside it (here).

For an excellent and affectionate primer on this particular part of the history of the Marxist left I can’t recommend highly enough (here) which outlines in detail the ideological twists and turns of UK based groups during the 1980s. And reading that particular text, and considering the entertainingly convoluted past of – say the Socialist Party, it’s difficult to see a serious and considered media scrutiny of the SP necessarily aiding their political development. No disrespect to the SP, but their greatest asset remains Higgins’ ‘fiery’ (TM) oratory, a sort of rhetorical sugar to sweeten the pill of their core ideology. If Clare Daly makes it to the Dáil that will present an impressive line up, but further long term electoral gains while no doubt accepted gratefully by the the party proper (which retains it’s supremacy over the ‘representatives’) might make them consider the interesting historical case of the Workers’ Party which once also was a highly centralised organisation.

Returning to the Higgins and Ahern stand-off, I suspect that what rankles Ahern so much when he attempts to fend off yet another verbal volley from the man in the off-white suit is familiarity. He’s looking up at his past when he looks up at that part of the opposition benches, and he doesn’t necessarily like what he see’s. Once upon a time, and not that long ago, Ahern was the politician who when he wanted to walk upon water would have his aides asking ‘how deep?’. Those days are over, although it’s telling that, from the latest RedC poll, while Fianna Fáil support is in steady decline, the opposition remains stagnant. It’s a little as if everyone is waiting, the public included, to see whether another personality on the Ahern scale is about to appear. I fear they may be disappointed.

But perhaps it’s Higgins who should be most wary of the current non-too critical adulation because while the media and popular opinion giveth, sooner or later it’ll taketh away…

Is there a problem with Peter Hain? Some people seem to think so, but are they right?

Almost Sober

JuDAS STEER

 

A thought provoking paper in Irish Political Studies, Vol. 21, Number 2, June 2006. This is by Paul Dixon, Senior lecturer in Politics at Kingston University. Entitled “Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Valuing the Union?” it has an interesting overview of the Secretary of State’s views and career, and winds up by proposing that Hain is ‘the most partisan Secretary of State for Northern Ireland appointed since the post was established in 1972’.

To back up this somewhat contentious assertion he notes that Hain who was born in Naiorobi and brought up in South Africa before he left for England in 1966 was strongly anti-apartheid. As a student and after he became heavily involved in the campaign in the UK. He was also a founder of the Anti-Nazi League, and Dixon considers it possible that the South African security services may have framed him for a robbery in 1975. Hain, like much of the British liberal-left bought into a Bennite attitude to the North which framed it in purely colonial terms. Hain had an fascinating trajectory from President of the Young Liberals to Labour. During the 1970s and 1980s he was involved in the Troops Out Movement.

During the 1980s he was a public speaker calling for unilateral withdrawal by the UK. Although as time went on this was modified to a degree and it’s interesting to note as early as 1981 he was against immediate withdrawal due to the risk of civil war… Dixon makes great play of the fact that this put him at odds with the principle of consent enshrined in the GFA, and indeed it did. However, again he was similar to much of the Labour left in that belief – and I seem to recall that John Reid, a predecessor of his was a former member of the CPGB, which took a pretty hard line on Northern Ireland too.

He was vice-chair of ‘Time to Go’ in 1988…but this fizzled out in the face of Labour indifference. As we move into the 1990s Dixon considers that Hain was paralleling the Sinn Fein line in terms of thinking, so as SF began to modify it’s arguments so did Hain, conceding that an agreed North was necessary. Perhaps…Dixon uses an incident in 1996 where Hain’s greetings were sent to the SF Ard Fheis, mistakenly according to Hain, to indicate that Hain had very strong pro-SF sympathies at a time when the ceasefire broke down. Indeed he considers that Hain’s unwillingness to address this issue ten years later in a radio interview (the transcript actually indicates that Hain says such an accusation is ‘wrong’) is indicative of…well something or another. In 1996 Hain apparently had a ‘chance’ meeting with some SF politicians on their way to meet Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn and others in Labour who have taken a fairly strong pro-Republican/Nationalist line. Again Hain denies any intent to meet the SF reps, and the Labour party who investigated the incident accepted his explanation. Now, I feel that there’s a degree of reaching going on here, because surely had he wanted to meet them openly he easily could have. But anyway…

Dixon considers the time between 1995 and 2005 a time when Hain accepted party discipline and made no statements on Northern Ireland. Now, I might interpret that as a period where Hain might have developed his thinking, but no…again a different interpretation is put upon what he did say. So for example when Hain says the IRA was ‘responsible for horrendous acts of terrorism and assassination…’ but goes on to say ‘it is essential to tie those who want to give up violence into a position where it is virtually impossible for them to go back. They need to be locked into a political process which gives them the opportunity to achieve at least part of their objectives. At the same time governments need to be very clear in their own minds about their own basic principles and what their bottom line is…’ he’s not really applauded for his quite reasonable analysis.

Indeed Dixon goes on to say that in other statements a ‘Republican analysis was again apparent’ as when Hain said that it was ‘the Protestant majority in the North ruling oppressively in a devolved administration and denying the Catholic minority basic human rights which it felt could therefore only be achieved by reunification with the independent Irish state in the South, an object which some nationalists pursued by terrorism’. Now, perhaps I’m misinterpreting what Hain is saying here, but it seems to me no more than the analysis which both the Irish and British governments have bought into, and indeed one which the SDLP would entirely agree with. So the ‘Republican’ provenance is difficult to ascertain.

Then we move onto his work on trying to solve the Gibralter issue, with that arch-Republican Jack Straw, where the idea of joint authority was mooted and later criticised in a Foreign Affairs Committee. This floating of joint authority is seen as yet further evidence of his partisanship and unsuitability for the job.

Finally in his dealings as Secretary of State Dixon provides a litany of incidents where Unionists have been ‘angered by his pro-republican sympathies’ (generally rhetorical comments such as stating that Britains role in Ireland had been ‘nefarious’, unusual from a British Secretary of State, but from a government which had already apologised for the Famine hardly the most radical of statements), his statement that Adams had shown ‘a lot of political guts’, hardly revelatory, and an inconsistency in his attitude to ‘terrorism’ since Hain has distinguished between Al-Qaeda and PIRA (something incidentally that Tony Blair did as well) but also noted that ‘terrorism is terrorism whether it was…in Belfast…or Islamic fundamentalists in London’.

And yet, and yet…so what?

A couple of thoughts along the way. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that the experience Hain had in South Africa was such that it might have given him a certain sympathy for Nationalists and Republicans. Indeed Dixon notes as much. This might well have given a certain impetus to his political development. But that has also seen a change, and development if you will from the certainties of the ‘Troops Out’ era to the more emollient post Good Friday Agreement period.

Dixons final three explanations for the appointment of Hain are that “Sinn Fein may have negotiated the appointment of Hain as part of the stand-down of the IRA”, or that it was a “deliberate tactical move by the British Prime Minister to put pressure on Unionists to negotiate seriously” or finally, and most unlikely to me, that “it was a blunder and the Prime Minister had not intended to appoint someone with such a partisan record”. This latter thesis he seeks to validate by noting that ‘[Blair] had made mistakes before…at the time of Hain’s appointment in May 2005, Blair forgot to appoint a Women’s Minister’. Well…perhaps. Or perhaps not. It’s difficult to envisage any set of circumstances where a Minister for that particular post would not have a full security vetting, would have a CV delivered to the PM detailing everything he had done in the past, and that Blair would be fully appraised of just who he was getting – quite apart from the fact that he and Hain had been colleagues and modernisers over a long period of time.

But let’s go a step further. Dixon seems to propose that Hain, in and of himself, is a liabilty at negotiating a settlement and that he “inhibits attempts to negotiate a stable, devolved settlement”, and yet supplies no proof of this contention. Quite the opposite. He actually notes that the DUP has made little of Hain’s past and SF has been openly contemptuous of him.

If I have a problem with the central thesis of the paper it is this, it partially reflects a viewpoint that is troubled not by the fact that Hain has (had) views, or that these have evidently developed, but that he has the wrong sort of views.

How else to explain the trawl through his history, or to disregard Hain’s later comments that ‘the world has changed’. How else to explain away that Dixon accepts the fact that previous Labour Ministers have titled towards a Nationalist view while Conservative Ministers have tilted towards an Unionist view – surely de facto partisanship. How else to also explain away the fact that Hain has in turn annoyed both the DUP and SF for various reasons.

Could it simply be, and I’m not ascribing this view to Dixon, but more to some who might believe he is at least partially correct, that this Minister represents (and this is important because it may well be a straw in the wind for the future relations between the two islands) a post- 1969, and post 1998 consensus, that could be influenced by Republicanism without necessarily being subsumed by it – one that sees the future in termed of joint sovereignty, an equality of approach to both communities, that tries to shift the question beyond the traditional winner-takes-all end games of both Unionism and Republicanism into an area which is about the sharing of political power and a recognition of diverse identities which all have to be recognised?

Or is it that one can, entirely justifiably in my opinion, be a Unionist and seek to uphold the Union, but that to be a Republican, or even to be influenced in part by a Republican analyses and also believe in a peaceful solution to the issues (which in fairness is what Hain did even at the height of his ‘Troops Out’ days), is somehow to be beyond the political pale?

When is censorship not censorship?

Polly Toynbee, writing in yesterday’s Guardian notes that the UK-wide tour of the musical Jerry Springer: The Opera is coming to the end of its run, and that the co-author Stewart Lee doubts that it will ever be performed again.

Apparently, following the protests and pickets of fundamentalist Christian groups, a third of the theatres originally due to host the performance pulled out, making it nigh on impossible for the tour to even recoup its costs, let alone make a profit. This is a show, remember, that’s been one of the most successful musicals put on in the West End (and in the National Theatre) in recent years, so it does seem reasonable to make the link between the protests and the losses.

It’s also worth pointing out that many (although certainly not all) of those who were so quick to point to Muslim anger over the cartoons of Mohammed published in the Danish press as evidence of the fundamental incompatibility between Islam and life in a secular Western society haven’t been quite so vocal about this campaign. One might, therefore, be forgiven for thinking that their devotion to ‘Western civilisation’ is a little less sincere than their more unpleasant distaste for actual Muslims.

That aside, Toynbee argues that the Springer and cartoon protests, as well as other similar controversies (specifically the Sikh campaign against the play Behzti , and the withdrawal of the M.F. Husain exhibition represent a threat to freedom of expression in the United Kingdom, and she’s probably right.

She also argues that the homophobic ravings of someone like Iqbal Sacranie shouldn’t be restricted by law, and that “protection against being offended should never trump free speech”, and she’s probably right on that as well.

However, she does seem to be avoiding the far trickier implications of the Freedom of Speech vs. Don’t Offend argument, and of the view recently articulated by Christopher Hitchens at a Hay debate on Freedoms of Speech which argues that the real threat to freedom of expression in Western societies comes less from the state than from ‘society’ itself (that is, from various different groups who demand that they not be offended by anything).

Let’s, for the sake of argument, take two basic principles as read: (a) that no one should be prohibited by law from expressing any view, no matter how offensive any other person or group finds that view and regardless of how odious that view might be, and (b) that violence, or the threat of violence, against any person or group based solely on a view they hold or express cannot be condoned. Both fairly reasonable positions which, while not completely uncontentious, most liberals would share.

If everyone accepted and respected these, would this be enough to ensure the protection of freedom of expression and an atmosphere which encourages the dissemination of a wide variety of differing, even conflicting, opinions?

Well, no; not in the cases outlined above. There’s nothing there which, on principle, would restrict Christian groups from protesting outside theatres, or prevent them from pressurising cinemas not to show The Da Vinci Code. Similarly, it doesn’t provide a sure basis for opposing a Muslim boycott on Danish products as part of a campaign to get Jyllands-Posten to apologise for printing the cartoons and promising never to do it again.
It’s all very well (and proper) to argue that someone doesn’t have the right not to be offended, when you’re talking about legal rights. But the implication here is that the state should legislate in this area (the Incitement to Religious Hatred bill being a prime example, although personally I think it’s hard to oppose that while supporting the retention of Incitement to Racial Hatred legislation, which I personally don’t). The argument gets a lot trickier when you’re talking not about someone’s right to express themselves, but their right to have a platform from which to do it.

If the BBC had refused to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera because of the huge numbers of objections it received, would that have represented a defeat for artistic expression. I’d argue that it would. But does that mean that Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee had an automatic right to have it shown? Well, clearly not, as no one has such a right.

Similarly, if 100,000 people argue that a particular play shouldn’t be performed, and request that a particular theatre not show it (and say that they’ll boycott the theatre if it does go ahead), on what basis can you make the case that the production should go ahead, regardless of the wishes of the majority? In these kinds of cases, freedom of speech isn’t really enough. I can’t argue that a particular gallery is somehow obliged to exhibit the works of one artist, solely on the grounds that the artist has a right to have the work shown, if I can’t at the same time claim that the gallery must also show the semi-pornographic doodlings I produced on the fact of my copy-book in school (to do otherwise would restrict my freedom, would it not)?

It’s an important point, not just in terms of ‘art’ but also in terms of debate in general. If I discovered that RTÉ intended to show some strange, racist mini-series which glorified the Ku Klux Klan, or that it intended to give an hour-long weekly radio show to someone like Justin Barrett, am I entitled to object, or to organise a campaign to try and persuade them otherwise? If so, am I acting in a way inconsistent with support for freedom of expression? If I’m a member of a college debating society (I’m not, and never have been) and someone proposes that we invite David Irving to speak , can I be a liberal and argue that we shouldn’t give him a platform? Similarly, if my local bookshop decides it’s going to devote an entire shelf to selling copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and I inform them that until they remove that item I won’t be giving them my custom, does that make me the equivalent of someone who calls for the boycott of Danish cheese because of some cartoons? And even if it does, does that mean that my stance cannot be justified?

Frankly, I don’t have a clue one way or the other. At best I think it shows that sometimes, ‘Freedom of Speech’ doesn’t win every argument, and it may also be necessary to look at the nature of the speech. But that, inevitably, leads to its own difficulties.

If anyone has a better idea, answers on a postcard etc. Winners will receive the Collected Works of David Irving and a copy of The Satanic Verses signed by Christ himself (oh, and his wife).

So what’s the big deal guys? Chomsky, his friends and enemies…

I’ve an uneasy relationship with Noam Chomsky – although, as with Madeleine Bunting, he doesn’t know me and couldn’t care less. I first read his works back in the late 1980s and was impressed, although not entirely convinced (being a good little pro-Soviet Marxist at the time) with his apparent thesis that the world’s ills devolved back to the US. I’d seen various Workers’ Party TDs et al with their CND pins, and their dislike of the US and it’s ‘militarism’, but oddly no clear problem with say Chinese or Soviet ‘militarism’. And that sort of thing tends to make a young lad cynical about the way the world really works. Hence my dislike for fetishistic and often one-sided displays of righteous moral indignation.

Another point that worried me, at the time, was the dichotomy between his apparently anarchistic ideology, yet oddly staunch (if indirect) support for statist regimes across the globe – however awful simply because…they’re not the US. Now, I don’t buy into anarcho-capitalism, but it strikes me that the US is much closer to a minimal state (and a better predictor of some of the negatives that might be implicit in a minarchy or most possible anarchies) than anywhere else on the globe, but I also wondered why he chooses to live in such an unhappy place.

However, he has on many occasions made interesting and pertinent observations about the relationship between power and the implementation of power. The US has been incredibly cynical in it’s machinations. It has allowed an uneasy, perhaps in some respects utterly corrupt relationship between corporate interests and national interests. The relationships it developed in Latin America with indigenous power-elites arguably stunted the development of democracy there by decades. The relationships developed in the Middle East, while from a strategic view necessary (and exactly the same as those developed by the USSR and other powers) were, as we’ve seen, counter-productive. And finally the lack of substance to the rhetoric of ‘democracy’ in these relationships has hobbled what should be the greatest asset it can deploy globally , that of an exemplar.

Yet, yet, yet. It’s all so one-sided. His world-view is entirely Manichean. The US is bad. All it’s works are bad. It’s much badder than anyone else. It’s a sort of reverse US supremacism. We’re the best! Cue wild cheers. At being bad! Cue more wild cheers…

His latest book ‘Failed States’ asserts that the US is now the ultimate er…’failed state’, hardly a new philosophical departure for him in the context of his previous work.

Two things also strike me. Chomsky is an academic. Which is good. But the basis for his academic credentials are not in the foreign policy studies or relations sphere which is something of a sideline, but in linguistics. That in and of itself is not a problem, but to my mind there has been an implicit projection of the latter part of his career being validated by the former. One doesn’t need to slip into faux-Chomskyian elision or conflation (such as the intriguing fact that the majority of those at the notorious SS Wannsee Conference in 1942, which was instrumental in the furtherance of the Final Solution, had MAs or PhDs) to believe that academic qualifications are not necessarily the only source of legitimation or indicator of intellectual brilliance. And intellectually brilliant he has been in the field of linguistics.

The other thing that strikes me is the absurdity of both his supporters and detractors. On the one hand we have letters as with today’s Irish Times where a fairly even handed review by Hugh Linehan of “Failed State” is eviscerated by a correspondent who explicitly proposes that the reason why Linehan (hardly the most conservative voice on the IT) “…finds some of Chomsky’s work so objectionable: it challenges these skewed narratives which journalists must internalise and defend in order to build careers in the mainstream media”. Well – yes and no. Anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with media studies, as Linehan clearly does, will not be entirely shielded from Marxist and other methodologies which elucidate the nature of state power, societal relationships and so on… Indeed the naivety of the charge indicates an interesting point made in another review of the book by Peter Beaumont in the Observer where he notes that “the Chomskian analysis has become the defining dissident voice of the blogosphere and a certain kind of far-left academia. So a sense of its integrity is crucial. It is obsessively well-read, but rather famished in original research, except when it is counting how often the liberal media say this or that in their search for hidden, and sometimes not-so-hidden, bias. Crucially, it is not interested in debate, because balance is a ruse of the liberal media elites used to con the dumb masses. Chomsky is essential to save you, dear reader, from the lies we peddle” (here).

And there you have it. As the letter writer to the Irish Times put it, Chomsky can’t be criticised because the act of criticism is in itself proof of the bias (or skewed narrative) of the person criticising. Now, the term Kafkaesque springs to mind…or as the Sex Pistols once so eloquently put it “No-one is innocent” and certainly no-one is above criticism.

Peter Beaumont is less favourable to Chomsky than Linehan, which is also interesting, since Beaumont is politically from almost precisely the same camp, being anti-Iraq War, and utterly cynical of US motivations.

On the other hand we have Oliver Kamm (and in passing it’s worth noting that this is a man who can use the phrase “Krauthammer’s superb op-ed” with no apparent irony) (here). Kamm is pursuing something of a one-man vendetta against Chomsky through his blog, picking over every word and sentence in order to point up inconsistencies and flaws. Recently he’s teamed up with Nick Cohen (someone who I’m becoming increasingly worried about) in order to complain about Chomsky on foot of the famous article in the Guardian which elicited quite a response – although I can’t seem to find it on their site and it appears to have been pulled.

One more voice to add to the mix is yet another letter writer in the Irish Times today, this time excoriating Chomsky, saying “Although there is insufficient space in a single letter to construct detailed arguments demonstrating the full extent of Chomsky’s impropriety, it has already been well documented for anyone caring to look, most recently in the previously mentioned Prospect article (“Against Chomsky”, November 2005). The fact alone that so many of Chomsky’s colleagues and peers object to his deeply flawed methodology deserves greater mention in Linehan’s review. The trait of deceit, in a would be scholarly work, is a disgrace”.

This is all very well, but I’d point to the fact that in serious foreign policy studies Chomsky isn’t taken seriously in the first place and his influence is minimal. Kamm and the writer to the Irish Times forget this. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, considering the degree of inertia in that field is a different matter, but it’s telling in relation to the fuss and palaver which his every pronouncement is greeted with by both his detractors and supporters. As for being a scholarly work… in truth they’re more polemical than scholarly. That’s not a criticism because there is always a necessity for oppositional voices to be…well…oppositional.

Perhaps Beaumont puts it best when he notes that what he “finds most noxious about Chomsky’s argument is his desire to create a moral – or rather immoral – equivalence between the US and the greatest criminals in history. Thus on page 129, comparing a somewhat belated US conversion to the case for democracy in Iraq after the failure to find WMD, Chomsky claims: ‘Professions of benign intent by leaders should be dismissed by any rational observer. They are near universal and predictable, and hence carry virtually no information. The worst monsters – Hitler, Stalin, Japanese fascists, Suharto, Saddam Hussein and many others – have produced moving flights of rhetoric about their nobility of purpose.’ Which leads to a question: is that really what you see, Mr Chomsky, from the window of your library at MIT? Is it the stench of the gulag wafting over the Charles River? Do you walk in fear of persecution and murder for expressing your dissident views? Or do you make a damn good living out of it? The faults of the Bush administration will not be changed by books such as Failed States. They will be swept away by ordinary, decent Americans in the world’s greatest – if flawed and selfish – democracy going to the polls”.

I think it’s actually quite unfair to Chomsky to see him as being insincere, or simply in this for a ‘damn good living’ and perhaps Beaumont only use the term as a rhetorical flourish. But, there is a real problem for both the pro and anti-Chomsky side (and perhaps Chomsky himself). History will catch up with their delusions of the respective brilliance or malevolence of Chomsky when, as will inevitably happen, there is a change of power within the US, when the lessons of Iraq (long-predicted by the foreign policy studies community) filter through to the political elites, and when a more balanced assessment of a state which acts for the sometimes for the best of intentions and sometimes in the most cynical ways possible but in truth acts hardly better than some, and hardly worse than others, is finally made.

And yes, I’m entirely aware that this post in it’s miniscule way adds to that fuss and palaver, but for the mildly interested outsider there comes a point when one looks in and sees that it’s not just the King who is partially disrobed but everyone in the Royal Court…allies and adversaries…

You say warshow, I say airshow…or…just how does this peace thing work anyway?

The mayor and deputy mayor of Galway, a Green Party and a Labour Party member respectively, boycotted the Salthill Airshow which was held on Sunday (here). They attended an event organised by the Galway Alliance Against War in the Claddagh where the GAAW had asked people to bring along "kites and other peaceful airborne objects". Now in a truly farcical note the Gardai were deployed to destroy, with 'weapons resembling hairpins' 97 red balloons (presumably on foot of the GAAW requesting those supporting their protests to ring in to radio stations requesting Nena's "99 Red Balloons", a cruel and unusual punishment in itself for those of us who remember it first time round). Such policing of the protest was arguably overly zealous, particularly when one learns that balloons were used at a march in favour of cancer research in the same area.

Now I'm in two minds about this. The basis of the dispute is that the presence of military aircraft, particularly those used in the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, 'glorifies' war and 'ignores the 'role such machinery plays in the deaths of innocent civilians in these countries'. Worse again (from the perspective of the GAAW, the organisers of Salthill Airshow have invited four British servicemen who served in Iraq to take part in the show. According to the GAAW the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and: “Their refusal to officiate at the war show indicates that there is widespread unease at allowing warplanes and British servicemen involved in the illegal war in Iraq to fly over Galway Bay. We have consistently argued the airshow is glorifying war. By inviting four British servicemen who fought in the illegal Iraq war, the organisers have proved our point. It has been further underlined in the way these people have been presented as celebrities. These men are no heroes; they were part of a criminal invasion of another country, an invasion that cost the lives of over 200,000 people.”. Indeed, and greater minds than mine might just point to a certain incongruity in such a statement in the context of…what's the name of the place? Just up the road, sixty, no seventy miles…ah, can't remember the name at all, think it's got Ireland in it…

Putting those points aside for a moment, I wonder if in this instance those involved in the 'peaceful' event really thought through their protest. Kites have been weapons of war since the Chinese invented them. Balloons have been used as aerial reconnaissance platforms. To depict them as 'peaceful airborne objects' is perhaps overstating the case. I'll entirely accept that there were specifically military aircraft on display at the airshow but few are single usage military aircraft, having either a training role, or a support role (such as the Merlin helicopter used by the RAF which can transport both personnel, munitions and supplies) In fact looking through the list of aircraft in attendance only the Royal Airforce British Aerospace Hawk, used by the RAF as a trainer aircraft, part of the Red Arrows display qualified as serious offensive military hardware. And to be honest while excellent for display, they're hardly the last word in fast-jet technology being produced in the 1970s. But again it comes back to the kites. All these are dual usage. They can fulfill many roles including peace-keeping, offensive military operations, humanitarian operations and so on.

Now, there were two F-15 aircraft from the USAF, which made a surprise appearance. But, in the absence of specific international sanctions against the US, it's difficult to see what basis might be made for shunning them. In any event what is the core gripe? That these machines are weapons of death? Then logically one would presume that all military hardware would be subject to equal sanction – including that used by the Irish Defense Forces – and scale being irrelevant to the principle that would have to include all weapons from hand-guns up. That's not a dishonourable point of view, although perhaps somewhat utopian, and if that is the rationale behind those protesting then I would entirely respect it, although respectfully disagree with them.

Or is it the linkage with the Iraq war? Now, as I recall the Afghan invasion was fairly well supported, even by Green and social democratic parties. And the current occupation of Iraq, while entirely regrettable for the form it has taken, is sanctioned by the United Nations – and therefore whatever our opinions of the merits of the invasion, perhaps it's best to hope that it will play out reasonably well, and perhaps regrettably that means we have to hope the US military will soon be in a position to leave and hand-over to the internationally recognised Iraqi government (indeed I shared joemomma's sentiments regarding the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that it was no time for glee in the midst of a pretty awful mess). But that, again, is a different issue from the aircraft involved. Once more I come back to dual use. Indeed, there are good arguments that this state should have fast-jets in order to police our airspace and our seas. These have nothing to do with military matters, and everything to do with interdicting drugs or smuggling.

Do such events glorify war? I'd argue they probably don't. Certainly the general tone of the air show was that of civil defence, interdiction and entertainment and aerial display. Look at the aircraft involved, transports, rescue vehicles and so on. No weapons were fired, there were no mock engagements (unlike, I might add, a supremely dodgy public display I was at in GAA grounds in Newbridge in the mid-1970s where various elements of the Defense Forces 'stormed' a fake house facade. Exciting stuff when you're eight or so…trust me). But sheer speed alone is not a glorification of war…

And that leads me to the point that there was "widespread unease". The figures attending the Salthill Airshow have been consistently high over the past number of years. According to ireland.com 100,000 people are thought to have turned up yesterday. People aren't forced to go and the protests were minimal. That's not to dispute that there is legitimate unease over the actions of the US. But the public are generally fairly nuanced about such matters and they can make distinctions for themselves between the political administration of a state such as the US, and those who are asked to carry out the orders of that administration such as the military – often as we have seen over the past four or five years, unwillingly and with considerable reluctance (and let's be honest, assume they refused, would it really be better for the world to have a military coup inside the US against a civilian elected government, however misguided, as long as that government had constitutional support for it's actions – actually that's an interesting question we might return to one day).

And that's why I'm in two minds about the protest. It smacks too much of gestural politics – whatever the sincere intentions of those involved, it goes against the grain of public opinion – which while being no bad thing necessarily appears overly contrarian in this instance, and finally it exaggerates and conflates too many conflicting issues which on any serious analysis don't really link sufficiently well to one another to provide a clear message to a public which has already made it's own mind up and voted with it's feet.

And, to my mind, if there's one thing worse than gestural politics, it's pointless gestural politics.