A Merry Christmas to all our readers, and thanks for the cards and good wishes.
Thanks too to our 6½ guests for lunch: Akiko Edagawa, Safire, Gilgamesh, Lauren, Caroline, Mappie & Maritza.
5jt.com is now on holiday and will be back on 3 January.
Bar Humbug
To the Albery Theatre last night to hear Patrick Stewart recite Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. A powerful and affecting performance. The house was full and Stewart received a standing ovation. Miki, who had spent recent evenings curled up with the book, said that rereading it in English, she had realised for the first time how Dickens had written it to be read aloud. (And of course, Dickens gave many public readings.)
Hearing the familiar story again was a shock. What (the Dickens) was he on about? For all the ghosties and the talk of Christmas (but see below), nothing about Christianity. The kernel of it, the pivot of the whole story, comes I think during Scrooge’s vision of the present Christmas of the Cratchet family. Dickens describes their feasting on a dinner barely “sufficient”, the family’s resolve to banish care. They were happy, they were ‘pleased with each other”.
Scrooge’s miserable isolation consists of his refusal to be happy or pleased with other people; and it is that — geniality — upon which Dickens insists.
I’m reminded of Stephen Fry, allegedly morose as so many comedians are, who considers geniality his duty to others.
Speaking of which, our representatives at the WTO talks in Hong Kong have allowed the talks to flounder. How long are we willing to take food from the mouths of the poor? Don’t they know it’s Christmas time at all?
Keep Christmas pagan Charles Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present preceded by half a century the icon of of Father Christmas made familiar by the Coca-Cola Company. So he is described as dressed in a loose-fitting robe of dark green, trimmed with white fur, and crowned with a circlet of holly. (Ouch.)
Christmas is of course the pagan Yuletide (still called Jul in Scandinavia) glossed and adopted by Christians a thousand years ago. The holly, the tree, the presents, the feasting — the Christmas we mostly keep — is the feast we kept long before the Christians arrived in the 9th century.
Moreover, while the Church adopted and adapted the festival, it never really approved of it. After the Revolution, Oliver Cromwell banned it and sent out police to force shopkeepers to open. And so it lay despised until Dickens resuscitated Christmas in the 19th century; which is why our images of it — coaches, cloaks and high hats in the snow — owe so much to his period.
Don’t you have any truck with austerity or “keep Christmas Christian”. Lay it on with a trowel.
And bring beggars to your banquet.
Constabulary duty Been a while since I had a good sing-song, and that’s what we had last night with a carol service in Parliament Square, while the Met. pretended they weren't observing a breach of Sections 132-138 of the Serious Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005. Pity the rozzers obliged to enforce this hasty pudding of a law.
It has to be repealed. Glenda Jackson MP sent her apologies and best wishes to Brian Haw. Ms Jackson, we would have been glad to hear your voice among ours; what we need more is action from Parliament.
» BBC News TV report
» BBC News Online
They work for you — when they can
I hope that some day people will wake up to what has happened to this Parliament, and to this House in this Parliament.We are effectively handing over our responsibility, as the House of Commons, for the proper scrutiny of legislation—ironically, to the unelected House of Lords. It does a wonderful job of scrutinising legislation properly: it works more days and longer hours than we do, it has more serious debates, and it is not subject to draconian Government timetables. I wish that I were a member of the House of Lords. Eric Forth (Bromley & Chislehurst, Con)
From the debate in the House of Commons, 3 Feb 2005, on the Government’s motion to restrict debate on the SOCPA bill to 90 minutes.
The best and the bulk
Trade matters to the welfare of the Majority World far more than aid. The DFID says our government supports a fair, free and just trading regime between rich and poor. As do we all, until it comes to “exporting jobs”, “protecting our farmers’ way of life”, and so on.
We voters want to see ourselves as the planet’s Good Joes, reaching out to the poor of the Majority World, but will not see how we benefit from their exploitation, as they send us the best and the bulk of the world’s oil, coffee and other commodities at rock-bottom prices.
Through our charities we demand evidence that we are effective Good Joes; through our businesses we press to protect our privileges. Useless to protest about the evil of corporations and governments — it’s us, it’s us. There is no one else here. Our politicians are in an impossible situation. No wonder the WTO’s talks flounder.
Nothing changes until we tell our politicians clearly we are no longer willing to take food from the mouths of the poor.
Wotta Charlie
Yesterday John Humphrys interviewed Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton and pressed him on the government’s attack on civil liberties. Chicken Yoghurt has the transcript. Readers should be dismayed to learn that this former flatmate of the Prime Minister is Lord Chancellor, responsible for the administration of justice in this country.
Human Chain Following the Beating the Bounds of the SOCPA designated area, you can now pledge to join a human chain around it.
I will form part of a human chain around the Westminster no protest zone but only if 6,000 other people will join in. — Richard
Deadline to sign up by: 1 May 2006
Still some good Babar Ahmad writes from HM Prison Woodhill
…there is still some good in this country, despite what it has done to weak peoples around the world. […] Before we impose ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘justice’ and ‘human rights’ on other countries, we should implement them in our own back yard first […] Today the excuse is terrorism, tomorrow it will be animal rights and anti-war. No one will be protected from the scourge of the 2003 US-UK Extradition Treaty.
Remember freedom
When I pass protestors every day at Downing Street, and believe me, you name it, they protest against it, I may not like what they call me, but I thank God they can. That’s called freedom. Tony Blair, 7 April 2002It was, Tony, it was. You might have forgotten that, but we have not.
Disposable citizens You can’t take your eyes off them for a moment. Look what's going through the House of Lords now. The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill empowers the Home Secretary to remove any person’s British citizenship.
» Spy Blog
Suppression of dissent
On my occasional passes through Parliament Square in recent years I’ve seen the protest camp of the lone saddo fixated on our disgraceful invasion of Iraq. I mean, one agrees; but camping in Parliament Square? Get a life.
Or so I thought until I discovered the provisions of this year’s Serious Organised Crime and Police Act specially designed to outlaw the lone protester. This deserves a parliamentary inquiry. Where did our elected representatives find the nerve to outlaw protests within 1km of Parliament? (Did I overstate that? We may protest in any way the police don’t mind.) If our MPs have the balls to pass legislation like this, we have serious work for them to do.
Before we get on to that, a word about the lone protester. His name is Brian Haw. He’s so upset about our murderous behaviour in Iraq that he’s been camped outside the Palace of Westminster since June 2001. He’s a hero, and you can learn more at his website.
Today is International Human Rights Day and Brian has been nominated for an award for his work. Yesterday two constables with an overdeveloped sense of irony woke him up and arrested him for sleeping within shouting distance of the Prime Minister’s bedroom. (See report in The Independent.) This is the same prime minister who gave us
I rejoice that we live in a country where peaceful protest is a natural part of our democratic process.
Go down to Parliament Square and join his protest for a while. Bring him coffee from Caffè Nero — a large lattè with ten sugars. Man the stand for a few hours so he can get some sleep. Wear thick socks and shoes; the cold seeps into your feet.
Daniel Ellsberg, in an interview on openDemocracy, claims that the US Administration’s preparations for attacking Iran are at about the same stage as those for Iraq were when the Downing St memo was written. He views the recently-announced American policy of allowing themselves first use of nuclear weapons to be preparing for the use of tactical nukes in Iran. He doubts there is any serious chance of the US leaving Iraq — they’d sooner give up New Jersey
— but claims Europe might be able to prevent an attack in Iran by persuading the US it would lose all its European military bases overnight. This goes beyond denying their use for an attack: invade Iran and the bases close the next day.
Question to ponder at home — how can we make this happen?
We have met the enemy and it’s us. George Monbiot’s speech in London last weekend to the climate change protestors, the most succinct summary I have read of the most important issues in the world today. Way to go. A long, long way. If we’re lucky.
Peace Mom Political farce writer Dario Fo and his wife Franca Rame are in London for tomorrow’s première of his new play Peace Mom, based on the American activist Cindy Sheehan, also visiting:
The Mayor [of London] closed by quoting a remark that William Jennings Bryan made in response to Andrew Carnegie claiming he loved America:We’re glad you love America. When you’re done with it, can we have it back?American Chronicle
I saw the Belt & Braces Theatre Company perform Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Wyndham Theatre in 1971 and laughed so hard I thought I would need surgery. I stumbled across his Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay at the Toronto Theatre Festival in 1978, but missed Rame performing her One Woman Plays at the National Theatre in — 1980? And now another chance.
Falling out of love is a dangerous thing, sings Mary Gauthier in a bleak Louisiana whisper. The Atlantic is widening, and it’s not just rising sea levels.
A new competition: find a definition of terrorism that excludes American support for the IRA and the Nicaraguan contra insurgency.
Falling Out Of Love MP4 5.6Mb
Oscar ceremony Doug Yeager writes fom New York: Ever-youthful, energetic and inspirational Oscar Brand has recorded his 60th-anniversary Weekly radio show Folksong Festival. This special show will be broadcast seven times on WNYC-RADIO in New York between December 10th and the 31st. You can catch it via the Internet on www.wnyc.org. Folksong Festival is the longest running radio and/or TV show in our history, and has been a home to every major folk and blues star over its six decades. During the terrible paranoia of the McCarthy era Oscar’s show was the only media forum in the country that didn’t cave in to the pressure, and allowed his blacklisted friends a haven where they could perform their songs and speak their minds. Celebrate the event by spending an hour with this American treasure.
In fact, mandatory
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man.
Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Filthy
» Parliament Protest blogOne policeman was heard saying
I wish I could join you. I wish I could do what you're doing. This is filthy. This is very hard for all of us.Indymedia report
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Withdrawal of Consent My recent return to Scandinavia was a timely reminder in little things of the ways in which civil society consists of trusting strangers. Danish society is markedly more trusting than ours, more firmly founded in consent.
Michael Vlahos argued in Terror’s Mask that terrorism has long been used to influence or just force entry to political processes. This reads suicide bombing as desperate, vengeful political dissent, national and international.
How did we acquire such enemies? From what have they withdrawn their tacit consent? The endless debate on measures to protect ourselves from terrorists gives this no thought. Batten down the hatches. Not listening, not listening!
Writing in 1826 of the utter cynicism of Italian public life, Leopardi remarked:It is as marvellous and apparently paradoxical as it is true that no individual or people can be so cold, indifferent and insensitive … as those by their nature are lively, sensitive and warm.The lively, sensitive Italian nature, Leopardi explains, when exposed to the uglyreality of things and men, particularly as manifested under Italy’s abysmal rulers, is prone to fall into afull and continuous cynicism of mind. The poet suggests a psychology oscillating dramatically between positive and negative states, a condition thatthe northern peoples, less warm and henceless swift to disillusion, could not understand. Tim Parks, “Rebel States” | London Review of Books
For Italians, read Iraqis. Read Arabs unhappy with the commitment of the US-backed House of Saud to keep the oil flowing at any cost.
…continued
For all our smug espousal of democracy, our governments have put or backed despotic regimes to control the natural resources of our former empires, upon which our dependence daily grows. Covered by liberal rhetoric about self-determination, after the Second World War we victors cast off the colonies into an exploitative regime masquerading as free trade between equals, seasoned with a little aid. We subcontracted to their despots the exploitation of oil and a host of other commodities, including the coffee I’m drinking now, but above all, oil. Half the world’s ships carry oil to us.
The decades of the Cold War allowed us to suppose the defence of democracy somehow required us to support despots. We had ten years after 1989 to replace them; somehow we neglected to do this.
Keep sending the commodities 
The trade and finance regime we victors established after World War II maintains poverty; we refuse to buy from the poor lands anything but raw materials and labour, and cripple them with loans, to service which they must keep sending us the commodities. Free Trade is a one-way street. We insist through the IMF and the World Bank that the economies of the poor remain open to us, while we refuse to buy their manufactures. We run this planet as a company town.
In this context, our aid programmes are pissing into the wind; salves to our flickering consciences, reassurances that we are the Good Joes of the world.
Climate change is only the most recent abuse heaped on the heads of the poor. Our effluent is changing the climate faster even than the scientists warned. It appears positive-feedback loops are already at work. The warming is not only under way but might be accelerating without our help.
Some changes will be welcome. We have been enjoying milder winters and longer summers in Britain. But little is certain. Polar meltwater has slowed the Gulf Stream by 30% in twelve years; if the ocean current stops completely, temperatures here are expected to drop 4-6C°.
We are rich with accumulated wealth. It won’t be easy, but we will use it to adjust to changes like these.
Not so the poor of the earth. In subsistence economies, without reserves, such changes kill people. This is our pollution, our effluent, our shit; we owe them the help they need to survive it. We owe them this help even before we help ourselves.
Wilful inattention We’re not going to give it to them — you know that. We’ll regret their troubles and would offer more help were we not also victims of this terrible, terrible thing. That’s just happened. Really.
They are poor and ignorant perhaps; but not stupid enough to believe that. Expect dissent. Violent. Incoming.
Air travel and electronic communication knit the world together. We used to send gunboats to faraway places. (Remember Joseph Conrad’s image of a French cruiser lobbing shells into the African jungle; that the RAF bombed Iraqi villages with chemical weapons long before Hussein ever did.) Now we receive bombs from faraway places too. And from people who grew up here but who feel more strongly connected to people there.
Expect along with climate change to receive more wake-up calls from those savaged by our wilful inattention; more vengeful and despairing suicide bombers. The climate terrorists have not arrived yet, but they will.
…continued
If a global democracy is crawling into existence, it’s doing it the same way it emerged here: with the breakdown of consent to oppression; with violence in the face of repression by the fearful rich. (That’s us.) We have our own history of bloodshed here: the Civil War, the Peterloo Massacre, the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Democracy didn’t arrive on a parade float. I don’t like it, but it’s our job to help it into being as painlessly as possible. Global democracy needs midwives; the planet needs 21st-century Whigs.
Our job is to ensure our leaders address this problem. Climate change, terrorism, world trade, global debt relief — it’s all the same problem.
A small but essential step is to deny our politicians the right to protect themselves from dissent. Not the violent, murderous dissent of the July bombers — we need our politicians alive — but the reasoned, peaceful dissent of Brian Haw, who has been camped in Parliament Square since 2001, and anyone else among us concerned enough about these matters to show up and make a fuss as the world goes to the dogs.
» Action On Oil
» Campaign Against Climate Change
» Democracy in Global Politics
» George Monbiot
» The Globalist
» Liberty
» People in Common
» Rising Tide
Plodding towards Parliament
To London Bridge by bike to ride with the cyclists in the climate campaign march. 
On our flanks, yellow-and-black clad biking bobbies on very serious machines: the Force was with us. At one moment, intimately so, as a blonde policewoman stumbled against me and I was swept by a sudden enthusiasm for women in uniform.
At Lincolns Inn Fields, there we lay down and wept; or I might have, as I find these events vaguely depressing, were it not for the sound system of the Rinky-Dink, belting out cheerful music while volunteers like Bev provided pedal power.
The rear part of the march moved off to the rhythms of pink-clad percussionists, more of a dance than a march. They played their hearts out, a welcome antidote to an otherwise glum plod towards Parliament.
There was little of the sharp humour of the anti-war demonstration in New York that produced
How did our oil get under their sand?
But a cyclist towed a model airliner-in-effigy marked with the decals of evilJet and Ruinair.
I left at Berkeley Square, having no business at the US Embassy that day. No matter how richly they deserve it, it is folly to use foreign political leaders as lightning rods for our energies. Or oil companies, for that matter.
We need rather to understand both politicians and corporations as expressions of our own desires; that it is our enthusiasm for cheap energy and our unwillingness to give it up that determines what they do. They respond to how we vote and spend rather than what we say; and they are very, very attuned to how we vote and spend.
A leaflet from Action On Oil proposes reducing oil production and demand together. The writer believes that since there are few large producers of oil, this is an easier task than reducing demand. Rationally this makes good sense, lest restraining demand (for, say, petrol for cars) lowers oil prices, leading to increased usage for other purposes. Reducing supply and demand in step would prevent oil prices falling.
Rising Tide had the best leaflet I saw, and promotes the Art Not Oil group.
Today the Parliament Square Picknickers beat the bounds of the Democracy-Free Zone established for 1km around Parliament by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005).
Dear Candace Bennett sounds like a pain in the butt.
Having read more of the campaign web site, I reconsidered too.
Why? Protesting against US policy wastes valuable time and energy. We need to focus on what can be done here. Bush-bashing, however justified, blows off steam that should be doing useful work.
Perhaps I’m too pessimistic, but we are talking about the people who elected Bush last year. If there is any serious prospect of changing American hearts and minds it will be the sight of us tackling this problem while they worsen it. Guilt might, just might, do what abuse won’t. The spirit of Andrew Jackson is too strong.
How about marching but bailing out at Berkeley Square?
That would demonstrate support for action on climate change without joining the shenanigans in front of the US embassy.
§
Just chill Polar meltwater from global warming has slowed the Gulf Stream by 30% over the last 12 years, according to a report in the Guardian. While the rest of the planet cooks in our exhaust, we get some natural cooling to offset it. To those that have…