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1486 Perrin's Empire -- rank: 1000

Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> at least pays me the compliment "one can say you are consistently pro-states rights, opposed to the concept of an international court." And goes on "You see things in realpolitick terms" To which I say I would consider realism in international relations closer to a materialist approach, that idealism and commend EH Carr's writings to you. Dennis adds "very Kissinger of you -- indeed, quite reminiscent of the segregationist Sou ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Oct 13 13:28:48 PDT 2002

1487 Washington, Brazil -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 13 October 2002 THE NEW IMPERIALISM George Bush's White House team came to power sceptical of the humanitarian interventions of their Clinton predecessors. In particular the goal of 'state building' in supposedly failed states like Bosnia and East Timor drew criticism from conservatives who saw it as an example of the temptations of legislating for human perfection. International diplomacy struck the conservative ideologues of the Republican Party as 'foreign entanglements', and ...

Document Size:	12336
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Oct 13 02:54:30 PDT 2002

1488 show trials -- rank: 1000

Dennis Perrin reveals his hand when he rights "I am happy to see my suspicion proved right", which has something of the Messiah-Nostradamus complex to it. Of course, whatever comes to pass has already been foretold by the prophet! Dennis also writes - sarcastically, I take it - "Yeah, yeah -- and if and when Kissinger comes before the same imperialist body, I know James, Carrol and their defenders will make the same arguments." i.e the arguments that the international court h ...

Document Size:	6152
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Oct 8 15:26:59 PDT 2002

1489 Iraq -- rank: 1000

Doug, quoted this from me: >But despite this weekend's protest, there is little likelihood that >opposition to the war will form into a real protest movement, since >it is for the most part, just an expression of the establishment's >own anxieties about what to do next. And said "This sounds a bit like the old LM analysis of Thatcherism as lacking the real balls to be truly capitalist. Sooo, James - what should happen?" Not wishing to be pernickety I don't think LM ever had ...

Document Size:	5715
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Oct 7 02:30:17 PDT 2002

1490 release Milosevic! -- rank: 1000

Quoth Dennis Perrin: "I don't know what's "opaque" about the above. But whenever Carrol states his views here we should keep in mind what he supports and what he's willing to sign his name to. Personally, I find it appalling that some on "the left" would lend their voices to Milosevic's defense, but then those who have no problem marching with the likes of ANSWER are capable of pretty much anything." A misreading, surely. The petition calls for Milosevic's *release* ...

Document Size:	5568
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Oct 7 02:14:00 PDT 2002

1491 Labour conference -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 6 October 2002 BLAIR'S TRIAL British Prime Minister Tony Blair took on his critics at the conference of his Labour Party at Blackpool. War with Iraq and the funding of public services through private investment ('Private Finance Initiatives') were the set piece debates. Both go to the core of the traditional labour party's beliefs - in the enlargement of the state machinery and an imperial policy independent of America - and in raising them at conference, the Prime Minister was o ...

Document Size:	8922
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Oct 6 03:04:13 PDT 2002

1492 Childrens' rights, British militarism, Sinn Fein -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 23 November 2002 KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY Queen's Counsel and Prime Minister's wife Cherie Booth is leading the legal establishment's protests against Britain's record of imprisoning children. Conditions in Britain's child prisons 'were recently described by the chief inspector of prisons as "unacceptable in a civilised society" and "institutional child abuse"', said Booth in an article commissioned by the Howard League for Penal Reform. Booth's proposal for a 'c ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 24 02:49:42 PST 2002

1493 Queen's speech, firefighters -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 17 November 2002 NEW AUTHORITARIANISM New Labour's political exhaustion was laid bare in the Queen's speech opening the new parliament. Although the government faces neither serious opposition nor economic crisis, the core of its legislative programme amounts to a crackdown on misbehaving children. The unravelling of the society's 'moral fabric', like the existence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, is an article of faith in British politics. Evidence is not required. In fa ...

Document Size:	8343
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Nov 18 01:58:48 PST 2002

1494 more on Islamism and new social movements -- rank: 1000

Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher at igc.org> writes "isn't there already enough actually substantively problematic about new social movements that it's unnecessary to resort to the right-wing tactic of comparing everything we don't like to terrorists?" I don't think that Phil Cunliffe was comparing nsms to Islamists to describe nsms, but to describe Islamists. If I read him right he would agree with you that there is something substantially problematic about nsms, namely their anti-mass c ...

Document Size:	5528
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Nov 18 02:12:15 PST 2002

1495 more on Islamism as 'new social movement' -- rank: 1000

From an admittedly suspect source "In a brilliantly illuminating and arrestingly readable analysis, Ruthven demonstrates the close affinities between radical Islamist thought and the vanguard of modernist and postmodern thinking in the West. The inspiration for Qutb's thought is not so much the Koran, but the current of western philosophy embodied in thinkers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Qutb's thought -- the blueprint for all subsequent radical Islamist political theology ...

Document Size:	5833
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Nov 15 02:24:58 PST 2002

1496 Bugger Baudrillard, as 'Forget' Foucault might have said -- rank: 1000

On Thursday, November 14, 2002, at 06:47 PM, Liza Featherstone wrote: > At an (admittedly) quick glance, looks to be the stupidest > terrorism-related > waste of ink I've ever seen. And it's a competitive field. Has this > guy ever > written anything worth reading? Yes, his description of fat Americans in 'fatal strategies' is a pleasure. Having written some very angry things against Baudrillard in the past, I have mellowed, and think that as long as you don't take him too literal ...

Document Size:	5730
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Nov 15 02:32:30 PST 2002

1497 Chip and Chuck's new social movement -- rank: 1000

Chip and Chuck object to the comparison that Phil Cunliffe made between New Social Movements and Islamism, in my mail of Sunday. ``...It is fair to argue that some aspects of Militant Islamic fundamentalism can be analyzed using NSM theory, but the rest of the attempted analogy is very weak, and ties back into the implicit red-baiting...'' Chip Berlet "It is not only, not fair and weak, it is wildly irrational reactionary propaganda to argue that militant Islamic fundamentalism shares anyth ...

Document Size:	7391
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Nov 14 12:11:05 PST 2002

1498 Islamism -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 10 November 2002 THE DOUBLE DEATH OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM by Philip Cunliffe In 1994, Olivier Roy, Research Director at the Paris Centre for National Scientific Research, published a controversial book entitled The Failure of Political Islam (1994, I.B. Tauris). The book detailed the decline of that movement popularly known as 'Islamic fundamentalism' in the English-language press and as 'Islamism' in the French media. Events since September 11 2001 would seem to spectacularl ...

Document Size:	20683
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 10 02:45:39 PST 2002

1499 Letter from Brazil -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 3 November 2002 HUMBLE PIE A letter from Brazil by John Conroy Brazil's new Workers Party (PT) government has begun its transition to power (it will assume presidential power proper on 1 January 2003) by announcing a 'war on hunger'. At the same time the PT is resisting calls from the conservative Liberal Front Party (PFL) for the PT to confirm its pre-election pledge that it would raise the minimal salary (the official minimum wage level and social benefit payment). The PT tran ...

Document Size:	9667
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Nov 2 07:30:04 PST 2002

1500 Hitchens gay? -- rank: 1000

Daniel Davies wrote: >Ahhhh I see. For some reason I'd got it into my head that the author of >the original piece was trying to insinuate that Hitchens was gay. And Doug wrote "He once was - flamboyantly so, according to some reports." A friend of mine used to bump into him regularly, climbing out of the window of one of the women only colleges at Oxford in the early hours of the morning, or so he says.. I always took his effete personal styling to be modelled on one of those lo ...

Document Size:	5384
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed May 29 02:52:36 PDT 2002