The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party

I’m simply using the title of Frank Rich’s excellent article, in which he tells you all, or at any rate, most of what you need to know about who’s behind the Tea Party movement, and its nefarious history. Great that at least someone in the New York Times is engaging in some honest to goodness truth-telling about these all-American extremists.

Update 30 August 2010

Rich himself mentions this essay in his article, and provides a link, but here it is again, in case you’ve not seen it: Jane Meyer’s

Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama

What, if anything can be done? For starters, websites need to be set up that identify, in detail, what products and services are most closely associated with the Murdochs and the Koch brothers so they can be boycotted around the world.

Et tu, Cruddas

Over the years, Jon Cruddas has emerged as a kind of soft-left version of Blair–what Blair might have been if he had had an intellect, or an intellect not driven by a neoliberal ideology. Cruddas’ announcement today that he is supporting the New Labour candidate closest to the ancien régime (David Miliband) confirms that Cruddas too, is part of the party’s current game of smoke and mirrors. To paraphrase the menu of a well-known coffeehouse chain, in the New Labour leadership election you can choose between a mild coffee, a smooth coffee, or indeed, a bold coffee. Want a candidate with a light body and a gentle taste? Go for David Miliband. Want a richer, deeper experience? Go for Ed Balls. Feeling adventurous? Ed Miliband is your brand. (For the record, this discourse is taken from the internet, I wouldn’t dream of having a coffee you–know–where.) The one exception to this multi-flavoured ‘brand’ is Diane Abbot, who was ‘allowed in’ in a gesture of hegemonic kindness that was itself almost certainly another act of public relations on the part of the New Labour nomenklatura.

The very end of this Guardian article hints at the horse trading that presumably took place between Cruddas and Miliband: ‘In his speech [David] Miliband also reaffirmed his commitment to Labour having an elected chair. This may have influenced Cruddas, because he has also backed the idea and expressed interest in running for the post.’

Why Assange chose Sweden (and needs to avoid Britain)

Earlier this year, a professor of phonetics at Stockholm University addressed the MPs at the House of Commons. According to the Daily Telegraph,

‘Francisco Lacerda, Professor of Phonetics at Stockholm University, questioned the effectiveness of the voice risk analysis (VRA) system that is being trialled by the Government as part of a crackdown on welfare fraud.

The academic paper was withdrawn by the publisher after legal action was taken by the company behind the technology.

Speaking after he addressed MPs at the House of Commons today, Prof Lacerda said the fear of a writ could lead to important research being suppressed.

”Either we will see cases like mine where something has been published and we have actions or threats after publication, or even worse the challenging research never sees the light of day,” he said.

In 2007 he coauthored a paper entitled ”Charlatanry in Forensic Speech Science” that criticised the technology made by Nemesysco, an Israeli company.

But the paper was withdrawn after lawyers for the company threatened to sue’(1).

I would imagine that Lacerda must have been astonished to discover that it is so easy to engage in what in my opinion amounts to a form of censorship. But Britain’s libel laws mean that virtually all that it takes is a letter from a solicitor threatening legal action. Unless the target of censorship is part of an institution with deep pockets and a determination to defend freedom of speech, anyone seeking to suppress uncomfortable information has to do little more than send an email threatening legal action to a bloghost, a journal, or a book publisher.

As has been noted by journalists in the UK, Britain’s libel laws do not just apply to Britain. According to George Monbiot, ‘Such is the reach and severity of Mr Justice Eady’s [Britain's senior libel judge's] illiberal rulings that four states [in the U.S.] have so far passed what are, in effect, Eady laws, and Congress is currently considering a federal bill whose purpose is to defend US citizens from his judgments, and the English law he interprets. The Eady laws arise from his encouragement of libel tourism: allowing cases with only the most tenuous connection with this country to be heard in London, and using them to stamp on free speech all over the world’(2).

This and other bloggers should know. Last January, four posts in this blog were taken down  (they have subsequently been republished) after the legal department of the University of Liverpool objected to some passages which linked Howard Newby, the university’s vice-chancellor, to a private training firm which went into administration in 2008. In my view, the passages in question for the most part did little more than echo information disseminated by Private Eye in a piece which it had published almost three years earlier, and which generated a scandal at Newby’s former university. (For a full account of what happened, see When the Exchange of Knowledge is Threatened. See also my Financial Scandal, Corruption, and Censorship series). Thanks to Britain’s libel laws, WordPress, which I take to be very keen to defend the freedom of speech of its bloggers, evidently felt that it had no option but to comply with the lawyers’ orders. It was as if the matter had gone to court, and a judgement passed. The lawyers were effectively allowed to act as prosecutors, judge, and jury. Alas, the attempt backfired when it became known in higher education and internet circles that one of Britain’s more reputable universities was effectively trying to stop the publication of posts in an academic blog. Other more widely-read blogs which were also targeted as part of the action generated an even bigger scandal.

These and a growing number of cases like Lacerda’s help to explain why WikiLeaks chose Sweden as the site in which to try to locate at least some of its servers. Swedish publishing laws reportedly go a long way in protecting whistleblowers. The Nordic country’s democratic tradition has made its policy-makers aware of the importance of maintaining a space in which people can speak out against acts of corruption, and presumably all manner of abuses of power by members of public and private institutions. It seems that Swedish legislation would protect Julian Assange and the rest of the people running WikiLeaks from the kind of persecution by ostensibly legal means that they might face if their servers were located elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see, beyond the legal process that Assange might now face, whether Sweden does prove to be a safe bet for WikiLeaks. One interpretation of at least one of the unfounded accusations in Sweden is that the forces of darkness are trying, by any means, to stop Assange from benefiting from Sweden’s freedom of speech. I expect that we will shortly be seeing that this case will take a number of unexpected twists and turns.

Here in Britain, I would note that the Liberal Democrats, and even the Tories made loud noises before and after the elections about addressing our critical deficit in civil liberties. Some steps have been taken, or are supposedly in the process of being taken, at the behest of the Liberal Democrats. I have, however, as yet to hear that our draconian libel laws will be extensively modified, let alone repealed and rewritten, as they need to be. Is this another area in which Dem Tories have had a change of heart? If so, the politicians will not be able to blaim the alleged ‘bond vigilantes’ that have been so conveniently employed to justify the rest of the Liberal Democrats’ u-turns vis-a-vis so-called ‘fiscal austerity’.

By way of a postscript: Craig Murray, a former British ambassador who has himself been the target of censorship, has noted that Assange has been awarded the ‘Sam Adams Award for Integrity’, an award which is judged by ‘a group of retired senior US military and intelligence personnel, and past winners. This year the award to Julian Assange was unanimous.’

References

1) ‘English libel laws threatening freedom of speech, says Swedish scientist’, in Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2010, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7422273/English-libel-laws-threatening-freedom-of-speech-says-Swedish-scientist.html, accessed 22 August 2010.

2) G. Monbiot ‘How our senior libel law judge stamps on free speech—all over the world’ in the Guardian, 19 October 2009, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/19/eady-libel-tourism-free-speech, accessed 22 August 2010.

Nick Clegg comes clean: we’re in it for the power

I suppose The Guardian may be being mischievous, but that is the only conclusion that I can opine from these news

Nick Clegg: Coalition will go on even if electoral reform fails

On the way down: the erosion of America’s—and Britain’s middle class

Back in the days when I was a postgrad student a wise professor noted that he couldn’t understand why public services in the UK were being slashed. He offered a series of compelling statistics that showed how the first wave of Thatcherite politicians (we’re now experiencing the third wave) was lying through its teeth about the need for what the neocons today describe as ‘fiscal austerity’.

Many years later, Britain is once again in the jaws of a neoliberal crocodile that is about to do another death roll. The United States is in more or less the same position, despite the timid flailings of Barack Obama and his coterie of apparently Rambo-esque advisers. This time, many people wonder whether it will be the neoliberal croc’s last hurrah; a country can take only so many ideological drownings before the social air runs out. Alas, the Thatcherite crocs in both countries may soon find that they too, can be devoured by bottom-dwellers.

This post is simply to say that I’ve finally found an article that represents, in all clarity, what this process is really all about. Have a look at the international edition of Der Spiegel, which provides a razor sharp analysis of who stands to lose—and gain—from the neoliberal spell.

On The Way Down: The Erosion of America’s Middle Class