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10 Nov 09

Magazine Roundup - signandsight

Neal Ascherson describes beautifully how long it took the West to catch on to what was happening in Eastern Europe. "Even then, none of us understood that the whole imperium from the Bug to the Rhine was no more than an old wasps' nest hanging from a roof - dried-out, abandoned by the stinging hordes, ready to fly to dust at a blow. But the people did get it. They had lost something - not exactly their fear, but their patience. Suddenly it seemed unbearable to go on accepting these systems, these portly little idiots in their blue suits, for another year, and then for another day, another hour. That special sort of impatience is the power-surge of revolution. ... It was a real revolution. But with one missing feature. That is the feeling in a people that 'We have done it once, and if the new lot let us down, we can do it again!' It was that proud, menacing confidence which made the French revolution special. But it's not around in 21st-century Europe. After 1989, the people handed over liberty to the experts. Will they ever want it back?"

www.signandsight.com/...1956.html - Preview

23 Oct 09

BBC - Mark Easton's UK: The picket and the postage stamp

  • On the Open Democracy website earlier this month, the philosopher and Scottish nationalist Tom Nairn posted an essay on the English postman as symbol of decline.
17 Oct 09

Greenspan recommends the banks be broken up ( - Bloomberg.com

  • “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big,” Greenspan
    said today. “In 1911 we broke up Standard Oil -- so what
    happened? The individual parts became more valuable than the
    whole. Maybe that’s what we need to do.”
16 Oct 09

Intelligence Squared - The West should foot the bill for tackling Climate Change

  • The developing world has made clear that it will not agree a commitment to cut emissions without commitments of hard cash and without the West agreeing to impose upon itself interim targets for 2020. Gordon Brown attempted to seize the initiative by calling for rich countries to hand over $100bn (£60bn) each year to help the developing world cope with the effects of global warming - but the figure falls well short of the 1% of rich countries GDP that the G77 group of nations has suggested should be handed over in climate change funding.

Intelligence Squared - Biology is destiny (or Everything I do I do to get laid)

  • However the late nineteenth century also saw
  • This synopsis of the argument aims to give a taste of the vast debate on the question.

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15 Oct 09

Eurozine - Homecoming 2009 - Will Brady

  • This is, nevertheless, as many sociological studies have confirmed, an extremely complex undertaking, and one benighted with paradoxes, misconceptions, and problems of definition. Robin Williams, in his article, The Sociology of Ethnic Conflicts, asks, "How is ethnicity related to 'nation' and 'nationality'?" Hypothetically, the answer seems straightforward enough: "A nation is a politically conscious ethny, claiming statehood rights on the basis of common ethnicity... Nationalism is an ideological movement in support of a nation." In practice, however, this definition runs into difficulties. "Since few territorial (national) states are populated by a single ethny, the term 'nation-state' is muddled and intellectually dangerous". This is certainly true in the case of Scotland, as Anthony Cohen has pointed out in Personal Nationalism: A Scottish View of Some Rites, Rights, and Wrongs, 1996:

Intelligence Squared - Democracy is not for everyone

  • But western-style liberal democracy is still the norm in around 100 countries around the world that adhere to the holy trinity of free votes, free markets and the rule of law.”
  • The relationship between democracy and freedom was stated by Joseph Schumpeter: "If everyone is free to compete for political leadership by presenting himself to the electorate, this will in most cases, though not in all, mean a considerable amount of freedom of discussion for all, in particular it will normally mean a considerable amount of freedom of the press. This relation between freedom and democracy is not absolutely stringent and can be tampered with... At the same time it is all there is..."

Intelligence Squared - Democracy is not for everyone

  • Russia under Vladimir Putin has experienced a backward slide towards authoritarianism and political crises in the Balkans, the Ukraine, Moldova and the Caucasus have raised questions about the strength of the democratic transition on Europe's periphery.

Intelligence Squared - Pope John Paul II did more harm than good

  • but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity
  • Damascus in 2001

Intelligence Squared - Pope John Paul II did more harm than good

  • He prevented women from assuming a more prominent role in the church
  • Catholic women who used birth control were effectively forced, if they attended mass, to act out their disrespect for the Church’s moral teachings every time they did so.

Intelligence Squared - Pope John Paul II did more harm than good

  • quarrelsome
  • England.
  • 3 more annotations...
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