Home     RSSRSS

Monthly Archives: July 2005

“There’s nothing like an external threat to unite a country.”

July 31, 2005 by james | No Comments | Filed in Front Page, Iran

There have once again been several stories about Iran in the press this week. Primarily they’re once again focussed on some heinous human rights abuses, though the long running nuclear dispute is once again raising its head.

In the midst of that comes this excellent report in the Guardian. The tag-line sells the piece a little short:

Iran, with its unabashed nuclear ambitions, is top of the US’s next-to-invade list. Is the mood in the country fearful or defiant? James Meek sounds out hardline clerics, Tehran liberals, mosque-goers, workers and the near-destitute – and finds surprising resonances with their superpower enemy.

While too brief to do the situation true justice, Meek’s piece does a great job of exploring some of the internal tensions, the sharply differing perspectives between rich and poor, and the class divisions that played the pivotal role in the recent presidential elections. It’s only a matter of time before the anti-Iran rhetoric ramps up again, and articles such as this that allow us to get a finer-grained understanding of the people in Iran are very welcome.

Also of interest is Juan Cole’s The Iraq war is over, and the winner is… Iran published at Salon.

Tags: |

Welcome Thoughts on CAFTA

July 28, 2005 by james | No Comments | Filed in Front Page, Trade

It was with some despondency that I woke up to the news that CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) passed the US House of Representatives last night. The extracts of the floor debate that made their way onto Morning Edition did not make pleasant listening, and it was particularly disappointing to hear that our local representative, Vern Ehlers, voted for the bill.

Some of the more encouraging commentary today has focussed on the fact that the Bush administration had almost made this vote a vote of confidence in his presidency, twisting the arms of many Republican members of the house. At some point some politicians need to start standing up to the increasing tendency of embattled leaders to make any vaguely significant vote a “confidence” issue, but it is heartening that a vote cast as being so crucial came so close to going the other way.

More encouraging still is this thought at Trade Observatory that given that CAFTA — which next to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) proposals is relatively innocuous legislation — came so close to failing, this vote may be the death knell for any harder-edged “free trade” legislation that is being considered.

That won’t mitigate the environmental damage and community destruction that is likely to follow in CAFTA’s wake, but it is hope of a sort.

Tags: | |

A lot of listening

July 25, 2005 by james | 2 Comments | Filed in Front Page, Life, Music

Audioscrobbler gone crazy I’ve been using Audioscrobbler for about a year now to keep track of my listening, see what others are listening to and pick up recommendations. It’s been good to see the service stabilise a little and features evolve — right now I’m particularly fond of the ‘under appreciated artists’ recommendations as a reminder of areas of my collection to revisit — but every now and again there’s still the odd glitch.

This one yesterday, for example, indicated that I’d listened to somewhere in the region of 18 billion songs. Some rough calculations suggest that’s about 100,000 years of continuous music, or 5.2million computers playing non-stop music for a week. I like these artists, but not that much.

Dr. Marx

July 22, 2005 by james | 4 Comments | Filed in Front Page

Since the late German was invoked by Steve in the comments on this post, now seemd a fitting time to link to BBC Radio 4′s In Our Time and their current featured episode, which is a profile of Karl Marx. I doubt Steve would be interested, but anyone looking to understand the impact Karl Marx and the materialist dialectic have had on subseqent economic and political thought (from both left and right) may well find it fascinating listening.

For the record, I think this blog bears clear testament to the fact that I myself am not an economic determinist, but that economic determinism is certainly alive and well in our post-Reagan/Thatcher world, and all too common in the rhetoric of their disciples.

Be A Witness

July 20, 2005 by james | No Comments | Filed in Front Page, Media and Politics

Discussing Hotel Rwanda with friends and acquaintances earlier this year, I was struck by how much more informed about the Rwandan holocaust it seemed I had been than most of those around me. It seemed that even the UK media’s extremely poor coverage of those events entirely dwarfed that provided by US network news.

That conversation popped back into my mind when I read the following in an email forwarded by a friend:

During June 2005, CNN, FOXNews, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, and CBS ran 50 times as many stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the genocide in Darfur.

The word that keeps springing into my mind is “shocking”, but really it’s not. It’s not a surprise, just a very sad reminder.

In this case the point of the statistics isn’t merely to shock and shame; they’re part of a campaign to change things. Check out Be A Witness.

Burn it to the ground

July 20, 2005 by james | No Comments | Filed in CCM

Posted as a comment on this entry at Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog in response to another commenter. Jeffrey’s post was a link to this article by Kate Bowman Johnston.

Gabe – if CCM really did simply exist to perpetuate a sort of music that wouldn’t be accepted in the mainstream because of the way it “edifies the body, lifts God up in worship, and presents Bible truth in good lyrics” then I’d say you had a point. But CCM left those boundaries a long time ago. Even if we could put aside the theological triteness of much of its output (which in itself undermines all three criteria), a few minutes at GMA week will show that it has long since moved on to seeking to present an ‘alternative’ to mainstream culture.

The crossover artists that Kate refers to in her article are helping to muddy boundaries that never should have become so clear, but there remains an attitude within CCM that involvement in that scene is a symbol of the “soundness” of an artist. Lately we are seeing more of a shift, as some of the CCM world tries to push itself into the wake of “coolness” left behind by artists like Switchfoot (not, mind you, Sarah, Bill, or Sufjan whose more independent spirit discounts them) but there is still a very strong in/out attitude forced out very hard through the many organs of CCM.

And it’s precisely these boundaries that have undermined any chance CCM may have had of touching many of us with “bible truth.” That mindset has reduced much of the output of the CCM machine to artistic disaster, but has also twisted much of the content to a simple “God loves me if I love middle class american suburban life” refrain, which is about as far from edifying as it gets. There are spots of light, but they are usually beaten out or end up leaving the industry. Similarly it is all too easy for many of us to appear artistically elitist when we talk about CCM, when most of its key proponents don’t rate artistry as a central part of what they’re about.

(we could also talk about how there is no real difference in approach, or indeed ownership, between “CCM” and “secular” labels beyond the demographic they’re marketing too. but that’s another conversation)

If CCM were to redefine itself to reclaim the mandate you suggest, perhaps more of us who are otherwise “elitist” and “snobs” (because we aren’t comfortable with its insularity and the artistic degradation that has been born of that) would have time for what little was left of it. For a long time I hoped that would happen, but time has made me doubtful, and I increasingly suspect that the best hope is to burn it to the ground and see what emerges from the ashes.

To voters in Grand Rapids’ 2nd Ward

July 19, 2005 by james | 7 Comments | Filed in Front Page, Media and Politics

If anyone reading this lives in Grand Rapids’ 2nd electoral ward and wasn’t already planning to vote for Rosalynn Bliss in the upcoming city commission elections, I’d urge you to do so, if for negative reasons (which isn’t to say there aren’t positive ones, it’s just a disclaimer).

This morning we had a phone call from Right To Life West Michigan urging us to vote (I didn’t spare the time to explain that I’m taxed without representation in the US) for Shaula Johnston. Delighted at the opportunity to communicate with somebody from any campaign, I decided to quiz them on Johnston’s other policies that might affect abortion rates, such as poverty reduction. At the City Commission level there is no chance of having a serious impact on abortion policy, so this would seem a sensible area for an anti-abortion candidate to work on.

So I asked “What are her other policies on issues that might affect or lead to abortions?” and received the response “It’s very simple, you can either vote for abortion, or against it.” When I replied that it really isn’t that simple, and asked again what the candidate’s policy views were I was told “I don’t have that information, but I can give you a phone number to call…”. The caller had no response to my followup question about why she would be calling me in support of a candidate she knew so little about, and instead tried to return to it being a very simple decision.

At that point I asked that we be removed from their calling lists unless they’re willing to make more of an effort to learn something about the candidates they’re supporting. Apparently they have very little interest in information, as I was told we’d be removed from said lists. If Johnston isn’t putting in the effort to keep informed those working for what must be a very small campaign, is she really likely to make a good city commissioner?

(Almost as soon as that call ended the phone rang again, this time with someone looking for a James Stewart who wasn’t me. She wasn’t allowed to tell me why she was looking for that James Stewart because I wasn’t that James Stewart.)

Tags: | |

Tony Blair and Matt’s mum’s dog

July 18, 2005 by james | 1 Comment | Filed in Current affairs, Front Page

I’ve resisted posting much here about the recent London bombings or their aftermath. There’ve been plenty of offline conversations, but I’ve been wanting to let some of the dust settle before writing on the subject. We were glad to hear that none of our friends or family in the city were hurt, and glad of the ease of communication that brought that news.

Unfortunately, Tony Blair’s statements, reported in the Observer yesterday, implying that changing British foreign policy is not an appropriate response to the attacks seem remarkably superficial. British foreign policy was changed sharply in the wake of the twin-towers attacks (in that case, towards war with Iraq) and it is entirely right and proper that it should be reassessed.

The many possible counter-arguments to Blair’s kneejerk comments (particularly with regards to Palestine, Afghanistan and, of course, Iraq) aside, I wonder if Blair might not be better off for a quick reading of Matt Webb’s excellent post to be found here (under the title “one of my mum’s dogs”). The past four years of “war on terror” have been disastrous and these attacks need to be the starting point for a radically new approach. This is not a time for defensiveness.

Tags: | |

Returning Harry?

July 15, 2005 by james | 5 Comments | Filed in Books, Front Page

Skimming through my newsreader I’ve been coming across numerous reports of people mistakenly being sold copies of the latest Harry Potter book. In this story refers to one child returning the copy he was accidentally sold on Monday. Should we feel bad that amazon delivered ours earlier today and that we’ve already been indulging?

Tags: |

Debt deal already under threat

July 15, 2005 by james | No Comments | Filed in Debt, Front Page

No sooner is the ink dry on the G8 communiques than leaks begin to appear suggesting that the debt cancellation deal announced by the finance ministers is under threat. The BBC are reporting that a memo has been leaked to the Jubilee Debt Campaign (as yet there is no news on the JDC website) indicating that the Belgian government is likely to try to block the agreement when it comes before the IMF’s board.

Belgium, it seems, is reluctant to allow for 100% debt cancellation for any countries as that would reduce the leverage it would have over countries that are currently heavily indebted to it (whether directly or through the IMF). Since the finance ministers of the G8 called for IMF debts to be cancelled using existing IMF funds, cancellation will have to be approved by the whole board. Belgium alone could not block it, but there is speculation that other countries might follow their example. Belgium is proposing that instead of debt cancellation ‘grants’ be given to countries that would otherwise qualify, thereby relieving their immediate cashflow crises but doing nothing for their long-term stability.

The brazen approach of Belgium is in some ways a little light relief. The key reason more debt has not been cancelled before now is because of the leverage it gives the creditors, leverage to impose the favoured economic policies du jour and a wide variety of other demands. At least Belgium is being a bit more open about it, even if through leaked documents.

But this leak lays many other things bare. It is another indicator that the G8 is the wrong body to make these decisions. It is a club of powerful nations, but not of all powerful nations, and where its pronouncements affect those other nations there is a real danger that they will obstruct them. More significantly, it is yet another reminder that creditors are not the right people to be deciding on debt relief.

Decisions about debt cancellation must be handed off to an agency that has no interest in maintaining existing power relationships, but which can instead make decisions based on the legitimacy of loans, the debtors’ ability to pay, and the developmental effects of the cancellation. We might hope that Belgium’s reticence will demonstrate this to those national leaders more disposed to debt cancellation.

In all likelihood, however, it will gradually slip out of sight, just like the failure to deliver on previous debt cancellation promises has. Capaigners must work to make sure that does not happen, and remind the public that “great justice” has yet to be done.

Tags: | |

« Older Entries