Category Archives: Britain

"Yo, Blair, How Are Ya Doin'?"

America, Britain, Bush, Middle East

By now everybody has seen the footage of a masticating Bush, at the G8 summit in St Petersburg, who, mouth agape, barked at Blair:

“You see, the thing is what they [Russia] need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.” And, “I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.”

Magnus Linklater of Times Online “rather warmed to Mr Bush’s gangsta rap summary of the crisis in Lebanon.” I must echo Linklater, this time, even though I’ve consistently opposed Bush over the years, describing him as “a bulldog with more bite than brains.” He can amuse, though. And to be fair, Dubya has a point this time.

Linklater’s is, however, a qualified amusement, with which I too concur:

“…the picture that emerges of the Bush-Blair relationship, revealed by that brief snatch of overheard conversation, is a depressing one. Even allowing for the verbal shorthand in which they talk, there is something shallow and simplistic about their world view. Neither gives any indication that they are pursuing a dynamic or creative approach to solving the current crisis, and policy seems to consist of a few half-formed ideas spun out at random. An approach to the hellish bombardment of Beirut that reduces negotiations to a quick image-building trip to the Middle East, and refers laughingly to a key player in Syria, does nothing to suggest a firm grasp of the situation.”

I would venture, furthermore, that the base (and basic) Bush-Blair banter does a lot to dispel conspiracy theories about what Our Leaders get up to when they think the microphones are off. Tinfoil-hat types often bang on about hidden agendas (and wars for Israel and oil). But, as is rather obvious, what you see is what you get.

“Yo, Blair, How Are Ya Doin’?”

America, Britain, Bush, Middle East

By now everybody has seen the footage of a masticating Bush, at the G8 summit in St Petersburg, who, mouth agape, barked at Blair:

“You see, the thing is what they [Russia] need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.” And, “I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.”

Magnus Linklater of Times Online “rather warmed to Mr Bush’s gangsta rap summary of the crisis in Lebanon.” I must echo Linklater, this time, even though I’ve consistently opposed Bush over the years, describing him as “a bulldog with more bite than brains.” He can amuse, though. And to be fair, Dubya has a point this time.

Linklater’s is, however, a qualified amusement, with which I too concur:

“…the picture that emerges of the Bush-Blair relationship, revealed by that brief snatch of overheard conversation, is a depressing one. Even allowing for the verbal shorthand in which they talk, there is something shallow and simplistic about their world view. Neither gives any indication that they are pursuing a dynamic or creative approach to solving the current crisis, and policy seems to consist of a few half-formed ideas spun out at random. An approach to the hellish bombardment of Beirut that reduces negotiations to a quick image-building trip to the Middle East, and refers laughingly to a key player in Syria, does nothing to suggest a firm grasp of the situation.”

I would venture, furthermore, that the base (and basic) Bush-Blair banter does a lot to dispel conspiracy theories about what Our Leaders get up to when they think the microphones are off. Tinfoil-hat types often bang on about hidden agendas (and wars for Israel and oil). But, as is rather obvious, what you see is what you get.

Party of Traitors

Britain, Democrats, Republicans

“The Republican Quislings have contributed greatly to the convergence of Left and Right. What we have now is a cartel, the traditional ideological differences between the political parties having been permanently blurred (both Democrats and Republicans, for instance, see merit in wars for democracy, limitless immigration, and a massive expansion in Medicare and other entitlements). If anything, antitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.”

The excerpt is from my new column, “Party of Traitors,” in which I quote Sean Gabb, Director of Communications at the Libertarian Alliance of Britain, extensively. (The above lines are my own, though.) Sean and I had admired one another’s work from afar, until we met at a Liberty-Fund colloquium, last month.

What I find so extraordinary is that Sean is very involved in Britain’s public political life. He is on the television or radio (BBC, no less) just about every week , discussing the issues of the day from a libertarian perspective.

Is Israel Done For?

Britain, Israel, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Politics

I suspect Joseph Farah is right; Israel is a lost cause. It is now a thoroughly left-liberal, post-Zionist society, bereft of a sense of the goodness of its history and institutions. Its secondary and tertiary schools have adopted the evil Palestinian and radical Left propaganda as Bible from Sinai.
In many ways, Israel is not unlike Britain, which forfeited the Whig interpretation of history in favor of a negative view of the nation’s past and liberal institutions. Or the United States: it too has come to reduce its founding to a narrative of the oppressed and the excluded.
Israelis now accept that they must expiate for—rather than celebrate—the “miraculous revival of an old people in a spirit of humanism and freedom, on a barren piece of land,” to quote Walter Laquer.
I was overcome with similar sentiments to Joseph Farah’s after recently reestablishing contact with “girls” I grew up with in Israel. The one, a pedagogue, tells me sans shame that her daughter refuses to study Hebrew in high school (apparently she is accorded such an option.). The girl also refuses to be identified as a Jew in her identity document. She confuses a show of hatred for her culture—language and religion—with a sign of sophistication and individualism, not realizing that hers is the herd’s position. These days deracinated liberalism is the norm—it takes courage to be a proud Jew. The girl comes from a fine family of pioneers.
Another friend, a single woman with a doctorate in math, also from an admirable family, is a rank leftist, who berates Bibi (Netanyahu) for having freed up the Israeli economy considerably during his tenure, and for retaliating against Palestinian barbarism. Turn the other cheek is her motto.
What worries is not so much the policy of this or the other Israeli administration. I expect little from politicians. Given the views my friends express, I worry, as Joseph Farah does, that the “people—themselves fail to discern right from wrong.”