The Quiet Road

In which I lament, though acknowledge, the need for some level of authoritarianism.

For the past couple of years, a property developer has been applying to build a waste incinerator within sight of my home. Needless to say, I gave generously to the campaign against the Energy Recovery Facility (euphemism is required if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them, as someone once observed). I didn’t get actively involved in the campaign however. For two specific reasons. Firstly, I was quite busy with other stuff. Secondly, I was confident that the planning application would be turned down. Which is not to say that the campaign didn’t need funding (planning applications need to be actively challenged, and even if your challenge is likely to be a success, it still requires time, effort and resources).

And as far as I could make out, that success was pretty much guaranteed. There wasn’t a single local councillor in favour of the plan, and every one of the local TDs and senators openly opposed it. As everyone knows, land rights and planning are at the very heart of local politics in Ireland. But with memories of the Mahon tribunal still fresh (it’s still technically in session, I believe), it’d be a complete fool who’d pass brown envelopes around a controversial project like this. And with bribery not an option just now, the decision had to be made on the merits of the project. As such, it was never going to pass. You could prove that on an etch-a-sketch, as the man said.

Firstly the location was absurd. Genuinely off-the-wall, could-only-possibly-have-been-considered-for-financial-reasons, absurd. The plan was to build the thing on top of one of the highest hills in the Rathcoole area. Rathcoole is right on the southwest edge of Dublin city. For a significant chunk of the year, the prevailing wind in Ireland comes from the southwest. Seriously, that one fact alone should tell you all you need to know about the project.

And there’s so much more. The road that would feed the incinerator is already one of the most congested commuter routes in the country. There’s a project underway to bring Dublin’s light rail system further out this direction specifically to reduce the amount of traffic on that road. You just won’t find anyone on the local planning board who’ll vote in favour of more traffic on the N7. Not without the aid of an extra-large brown envelope.

But on top of all that, it turns out the developer is an out-of-town consortium. And this is commuter belt. Prime land from a development standpoint. Luxury golf hotels and expensive residential developments. Property values are high, but dropping like everywhere else, and existing developers — those with large plots of land in the area and long-standing relationships with local politicians — don’t want to see those values drop further thanks to the presence of an incinerator.

So for those three reasons, it realistically stood no chance. But interestingly, all three of those objections are rooted, to varying degrees, in NIMBYism.

Not In My Back Yard (ism)

My own objection to the incinerator, in contrast, was based on a fourth reason; one that applies to all waste incinerators whatever their location. So even if positioned in what’s demonstrated to be the best location for such a facility, even if the local infrastructure can take the pressure and local property values positively soar as a result… even then, I think generating electricity from burning waste is a staggeringly bad idea.

In fact, it’s difficult for me to get across just how bad an idea I think it is without straying perilously close to caricature. To not merely create an industry that generates profit from burning waste, but suggest we rely upon that industry to provide basic services, is utterly psychotic. I can think of other words for it, but that’s the least rude. It is, just like any decision to build new nuclear power stations is, a statement to the effect that we are incapable or unwilling to act rationally in pursuit of a sustainable society and have decided, instead, to be active participants in a spectacular collapse.

By and large we are not aware that’s the statement we’re making, of course. A big bunch of unconscious processes, dontchaknow.

All the same, in the case of the Rathcoole incinerator, it is a happy coincidence that the objections of the local population were in accord with the Greater Good (if, as I’ve come to do, we define the “Greater Good” as those actions and decisions that promote a transition towards sustainability involving the least possible suffering). But what if they weren’t? What happens when the objections of the local population become obstacles towards that Greater Good? Do we accept that people have the right to continue acting unsustainably even if that behaviour dooms us all to the same fate? Do we allow the psychotic to thrash about, damaging himself and everyone around him? Or do we accept the need for restraint? And do we accept that need even when the psychotic is ourself?

Clearly we do accept that need. We just haven’t learnt to identify western consumerism as the huge episode of self-harm that it is.

In defence of NIMBYism, Merrick has this to say…

NIMBYism, like preaching to the converted, is an underrated activity.

To decry NIMBYs is absurd. We all have more concern for the things that affect our personal lives, we all care more about the things we see every day.

A friend of mine was campaigning against some nonsense from his council and knocked on doors in his street. One person said ‘you know your problem, you think you can change the world’.

My friend replied, ‘how big’s your world? Our street is a pretty big part of it. We can change that. If everyone did the same, then in the bigger sense we would change the world, too’.

Merrick, comments to a blog post

I appreciate the point being made. It’s the essence of all direct action politics in fact. But the central problem remains… this is only a valid strategy if we assume that the local concerns of individuals aren’t in contradiction with the needs of society as a whole. When everyone objects to an incinerator being built on their (metaphorical) street, then no incinerators get built and we can chalk one up for NIMBYism. But when nobody wants their view obstructed by wind farms… or nobody wants to abandon the luxury of their private car…

What then? I don’t accept that the demands of the masses; whether expressed democratically through the ballot box, or economically through their choice of soap powder; should be considered an adequate guide for our collective action. Especially when those demands can be shown to be reckless and destructive. A hundred years ago we had, in a sense, the luxury of basing our decisions upon ideological concerns. Our desires and demands could shape our behaviour because our environment could absorb anything we had the power to do. That’s just not the case any more. Thanks to technology and population growth, we have bumped up against the limits.

And because of this, it simply doesn’t matter what we want to do anymore. Our options have been curtailed, but we don’t quite appreciate this yet. Environmental limits will impose certain courses of action upon us. And these limits cannot be shifted by voting, nor by the most well-organised direct action campaign. We have reached the point where there are definite right and wrong ways to act, assuming our goal is anything remotely like the “Greater Good” I defined earlier.

Just as it is absurd to “decry NIMBYism” as a general principle (and it is absurd; I never suggested that, Merrick), so it’s absurd to assume it will always be a force pushing in the right direction. And when it pushes us further towards the brink…?

… well … as I said earlier… “in which I lament, though acknowledge, the need for some level of authoritarianism”.

By pretty much any standard, I’m well-travelled. I’ve lived or worked on every continent bar Australia and Antarctica. But I’m not sure I’ve ever been anywhere that’s as filled with contradictions as Serbia. Mostly it reminds me of Greece in the early 1980s… despite not having a coast on the sea, the culture is primarily Mediterranean. The weather, the food, the pace of life, many of the more obvious mannerisms and attitudes. All very Med.

But on top of that are layers of difference. Contradictory as well as complementary. Certainly here in the north of the country, there’s a very definite central / northern European influence. Austro-Hungarian influences are everywhere. The architecture (leastways the pre-war stuff) and a certain “clipped” tone to the accent (though I’m told the south of the country doesn’t share this) means you never forget your proximity to Budapest and Vienna. And this Northern influence sits uneasily with the Mediterranean attitudes.

Though it’s often obscured by the other major influence on Serbian culture — the Eastern. The Slavonic. At the heart of Yugoslavia for two generations, the post-war culture was dominated by Russia. Never entirely within the Soviet sphere of influence (the Iron Curtain became more of a net curtain when it extended southwards towards the Med), Tito tried to walk a fine line between East and West. And in a sense he succeeded.

Obviously that’s a pretty damn controversial view, made all the more difficult to accept in the context of what happened to the region upon his death. Nonetheless, I shall expand upon this view when I return home next week.

For now, I have places to be and people to see. One of the purposes of this trip is to visit with the family of the lovely Citizen S. And the schedule is pretty tight. So until next time…

There’s plenty of catching up to do. Plenty of “Previous posts” links to be clicking. Though browsing through my blogroll, I find that it’s been quieter than usual all round. It’s not just been me.

Larry‘s only had four posts since Chrimbo for instance. Mind you, one of those was a video of a man playing Angels We Have Heard On High on a piece of broccoli. I’ll take quality over quantity every time, and it doesn’t get much better than a man playing Angels We Have Heard On High on a piece of broccoli.

An anecdote about my life as an engineer

John B’s been over in Haiti. I came within a mildly amusing anecdote of spending a few months in Haiti in 1996 but it involves a corporate blunder that’s almost certainly still covered by confidentiality clauses, so I’ll have to be vague.

At the time I was working for an engineering consultancy that specialised in managing medium-sized projects for US corporations (food and beverage mostly, but there was bits and pieces of other stuff). The company had built its reputation on handling projects in what were euphemistically known as “hardship locations”… Nigeria, Angola, Ghana, Tanzania, the Middle East, the Philippines. Though by the time I joined they’d shifted both into working in ‘first world’ countries and also to the “new hardship locations” of the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia.

In early 1996 a multinational corporation contacted us. An almighty cock-up had been made in Haiti and our company was one of a small group who had the expertise to put it right. Because there was a certain level of political sensitivity involved, there was a kind of “name your price” air to the whole thing. I put together our quote for the job and was encouraged to “be generous” with the budget by my boss; the company owner. I’m talking about the high side of reasonable here, you understand, not silly. The project had a healthy profit margin, but still we looked certain to win the contract.

I’d begun preparing to head out there. Seven of us would go out. Myself, a director of the company, and five engineers. After a couple of weeks, the director would head home and I’d run the thing for the next twelve weeks or so. It was to be the third project I’d managed, but the first in a hardship location… and what a location! Admittedly, our project would entail spending most of our time in a secure compound well away from population centres. So it’s not as if we were going to be hanging out in downtown Port-au-Prince every evening. All the same, it was a pretty daunting prospect and I had more than a few sleepless nights freaking out about it.

The day before I was due to fly out for a preliminary visit we got word that the project was put on hold. I don’t recall ever being so relieved. A part of me was excited by the prospect of visiting the place, but it was a small part. Overshadowed significantly, I might add, by a far larger anxiety about running a site office and managing a bunch of men, many of whom were twice my age, for three months. In Haiti. In fairness to my boss, and contrary to how I may come across here, I was actually quite good at that kind of thing at the time. It’s not like he was sending some blithering academic off to fix stuff in Haiti. Even so, I was mightily relieved when I informed the office secretary to cancel my travel plans.

The company was expanding at the time. We were being asked to quote on far more work than we could possibly do and despite moving to larger premises and taking on more staff, we were actually turning down as many projects as we were taking on. So losing Haiti wasn’t all that big a deal. Within a week I was looking at the schematics for a plant in Baku.

For the next couple of months the Haiti project was on-again / off-again. It was getting on my nerves, and it was pissing off my boss. Over a liquid lunch one afternoon, he brought up the subject and vented his exasperation at trying to get anything organised in Haiti. The place was, he assured me, impossible to deal with. This from a guy who’d built factories in Angola and Northern Nigeria.

“Yeah, and that’s without the voodoo! Just wait ’til one of the lads pisses off a local voodoo priest. It’ll be The Serpent and The Rainbow all over again”. I was laughing, but my boss’s interest had been piqued. What was The Serpent and The Rainbow, he wanted to know? I told him it was a book and then a movie about Haitian voodoo and was supposedly based upon a true story. We chatted about voodoo for a while and I told him to rent the movie from the video shop if he got the chance.

He did. And clearly a bit squiffy from a few ales, he sat down to watch it that evening.

Now, I don’t know about you, but there are one or two horror movies that — for me — stand far above the rest… films that got to me. Got to me at a level that most horror films, even the very good ones, never get to. Films that crept inside me and did nasty things to my mind when I lay down in my bed at night. And it’s not about the quality of the film; it’s about the time and place you see it. Set and setting. How you’re feeling, what’s been on your mind, what you’ve eaten, drank or smoked. For me, An American Werewolf in London was one of those films.

For my boss, it turns out, The Serpent and The Rainbow was one of those films.

We’d had that drink on Friday afternoon. By Monday morning he’d read most of the book and was in something of a state. That afternoon he made a call to New York and withdrew our involvement in the Haiti project.

Now, I’m not saying that we’d still have pulled out if economic conditions had been different and there hadn’t been other work to do. And the way we’d been jerked around for so long certainly hadn’t helped. But The Serpent and The Rainbow was very much the straw that broke the camel’s back. The fact that my boss rented that movie on that particular night and it scared ten shades of shit out of him is almost certainly the reason I didn’t go to Haiti in the mid 90s.

So yeah.

There you have it. Well, I did say it was a mildly amusing anecdote. Though I must admit, it certainly went on for longer than I’d anticipated.

But look, it is almost 4am. I’m very close to nodding off. And I wanted to get something up here tonight but the thing I’m writing about nuclear power isn’t quite right yet, and the thing about police brutality and civil protest just isn’t hanging together either. At least this meandering nonsense is labelled as such.

Is that one of the best film credits ever?

And is this one of the best opening paragraphs to a blog post ever…?

The approval ratings of Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl have fallen below Gordon Brown’s according to a Daily Mirror YouGov poll published today which suggests that Brown would win a 20-seat majority at the next election if the Conservative Party were led by Fritzl.

Harry Hutton, Fritzl’s Approval Ratings Fall Below Brown’s

Certainly when you add it to the closing paragraph of Harry’s prior post, it’s clear that despite the lack of quantity, Chase Me Ladies, I’m In The Cavalry… is also still providing high quality:

I honestly believe him to be insane. And the fact that this very dangerous lunatic is still poking his nose into the Middle East shows that Blair remains one of the most serious threats to our national security, and that his arrest and execution should be matters of the highest priority.

Harry Hutton, Blair Must Hang

There have been plenty more pearls amongst the online swine during my absence. I’ll get to them in due course. I’m travelling a lot over the next couple of weeks. London. Then Serbia. But I’ll try to post as often as possible, even if only briefly. For now, I’ll leave you with Politicari + Virusi (Politicians and Viruses) from Serbian band, Disciplin A Kitschme.

What’s that? 2009, you say? Blimey! When did that happen?

As is traditional, I’m starting the year a little later than most of you. Just think of it as an extra-long lie-in.

Actually, it’s just that I’ve had some stuff going on in my life that didn’t involve sitting in front of a screen. Good stuff, I should point out, but the blog kind of fell by the wayside as a result. Now that I’m shifting some focus back onto work again, I’ll be screen-bound more often. So let’s see if I can’t get this place up and running while I’m here.

I hope y’all like the (slight) makeover. Just a couple of minor tweaks to the palette and a new header, but it seemed like the right time to run a duster over the place. I’ve done very little browser-testing as it’s mostly been minor changes to a relatively well-tested template. All the same, if you notice any problems let me know what browser / version and OS you’re using as well as what’s wrong with the page. Also, if you think there are any colour clashes, please let me know. I really like the white / yellow text on red background (the metadata / infobox style), but as has been been made clear in the past, my design aesthetic is occasionally idiosyncratic. So if something’s hurting your eyes or giving you headaches, bouts of nausea, nosebleeds, etc… do let me know.

As for where I’ve been? Well, it’s been a memorable few months from my perspective. Most of it great, I’m pleased to say. I’m now sharing my home with the lovely Citizen S, which is by far the biggest — and most positive — change in my life for untold aeons. Wish us well.

Also, I recently received final confirmation that my thesis passed. Yay me! Of course, now that I’ve collected a few more letters after my name, I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with them.

You have to understand, a lot of the things I’d planned to have done by now…? They kind of went the way of this blog for a while. If I’m to be brutally honest about it, I could probably sum up the past few months with the phrase “hanging out with S”. And frankly, I’d be more than happy to have that sum up the next few months too. I can think of few better ways to spend the summer than laying about together, reading books in the sunshine and watching DVDs on the days it rains.

Except. Well, I really need to find time to write in amongst all that laying about. And of course, The Good Citizen has a rather busier schedule than me. There’s exams looming and much studying to be done (S is an architect, but has decided to pick up some alternative skills and qualifications now that the arse has dropped out of the global construction industry).

So yeah, that’s where I’ve been. And that’s why I’m back. Hope it all makes half-sense. And while I do apologise to my regular readers for absconding as I did, with nary a by-your-leave; don’t imagine I feel in the slightest bit guilty for taking a few months off and laughing a lot. Global capitalism, it seems, was happy to continue collapsing without my assistance.

Somebody gave me an Advent Calendar from Woolworth. The windows were boarded-up and there was fuck all inside.

Shamelessly nicked from here.

As a short addendum to my previous post, and to indicate exactly why Obama is not going to address the fundamental problems facing America — and the wider world — this article over at the BBC contains a revealing quotation from the man himself.

Now, let me preface this by pointing out that his plan for massive government investment in infrastructure projects is a sound one. The problem comes when you analyse the type of projects he wants to invest in.

We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule — use it or lose it. If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money.

“New and smarter”. “Roads and bridges”.

Because that’s what America needs in an era of decreasing oil availability. More roads.

I have plenty to say on the new president(-elect) of the United States. But I want to get this single point out of the way. I supported an Obama vote, because I honestly felt that the presence of a member of the Christian Right on the Republican ticket made them too damn dangerous. But I did so with the clear caveat that Barack Obama was merely the lesser of two evils. There is no evidence whatsoever that he intends to — or is even capable of — implementing the kinds of radical policies necessary to address the serious problems facing us today (resource depletion and Climate Change).

It’s certainly nice to see America have it’s own little Portillo-moment, and I do not begrudge in the slightest the celebrations of those Americans who view Obama as a major force for change. The hangover will be painful, just as it was in Britain in the late 90s, but after 8 years of Dubya Bush who can blame folks for having a bit of a piss-up?

Politically speaking, I agree completely with Merrick when he points out that the new boss is the same as the old boss.

See, there is one decision that a western leader could take which would indicate that a fundamental change for the better has occurred. One decision that would send out a powerful signal that we are finally on the right track. And even though it’s a difficult decision, and even though there would be no guarantee that its implementation would be successful, it would be like an announcement to the future that someone had finally understood the problem. Though, what’s remarkable about the decision is that it goes against the ideas of the capitalist right and the traditional socialist / communist left.

It’s the decision to end our fixation with economic growth. We need to decide to scale things back. Less work, less consumption. A managed powerdown. And I’m not talking about some absurd neo-primitivism. This can only happen through intelligent and efficient use of technology.

Anyone really think that’s on Obama’s agenda?

BUT…

The story is never that simple though. Obama’s election does not herald a major political change (I’d be surprised if it even heralds a minor one). But a huge social change has occurred. And I’m willing to applaud that and support it with all my heart. I lived in Texas for a short time and in the US midwest for a bit longer. The division of the country along race lines was far more pronounced than it was in other places I’d lived. Even when I lived there, during the Clinton years, there was a palpable racial tension.

Now, obviously I’m not saying that the election of Barack Obama means that US racism is a thing of the past. That would be far too easy. But it is a powerful symbol of positive progress. From slavery to the presidency in less than 150 years isn’t to be underestimated.

I’m thinking mostly of those children — both black and white — who will start going to school over the next few years. They’ll open their history books and see pictures of all their presidents. For the first time there’ll be a non-white face among them. The social and psychological message that one, simple picture will send out should not be dismissed, merely because Obama’s politics are business as usual.

My hastily written post (Tories living in Stalinist Britain) about the arrest of British tory MP, Damian Green (or more accurately about the absurd statements made about his arrest by the tory party) got quoted all over the place. As a result my readership has more than doubled in the past couple of days. Not quite as dramatic as the infamous Joss Whedon link that saw thousands of people showing up, but a bit weird all the same. Of course, it’s pretty much guaranteed that none of the new folks will stick around to become regulars, but all the same, I bid you a hearty “Welcome!”

From what I can gather, I’ve mostly been cited or linked-to in a positive context (e.g. Bloggerheads, Chicken Yoghurt, Liberal Conspiracy, Shiraz Socialist, and more). Though there has been one clear denunciation, from a blogger called A Very British Dude (I know!), who accuses me of promoting a “pinko mythology”. As well as that, someone on the comment-thread on the Liberal Conspiracy post seems to imply that my position is based upon support for the British Labour Party.

Regular readers will — of course — realise just how absurd both accusations really are. However, many of my visitors right now won’t be regulars, so let me take this opportunity to dispel those misconceptions as well as provide a little bit of information about where I do stand (in the hope that it might, perhaps, provide some food for thought).

Firstly let’s point out that ‘pinko’ implies a kind of wishy-washy left-wing liberalism. According to Wikipedia (that font of all conjecture):

Pinko is a derogatory term for a person regarded as sympathetic to Communism, though not necessarily a Communist Party member. The term has its origins in the notion that pink is a lighter shade of red, the color associated with communism; thus pink could be thought of as a “lighter form of communism” promoted by mere supporters of socialism who weren’t, themselves, “card-carrying” communists.

I am not a communist. However, I am a collectivist. Albeit in a restricted sense. Certainly I am an opponent of capitalism and I believe that a free-market in non-renewable natural resources is both a symptom of, and a contributing factor in, a collective psychosis that dominates modern civilisation. If you insist upon viewing politics in terms of colours, then I guess I’d be dark green with enough red to create a kind of muddy brown hue, flecked with non-militaristic white.

The reason I balk at the “communist” label is because I strongly disagree with a whole host of traditionally communist positions which are common to both the Marxist-Leninist and Maoist flavours. Two points in particular make it utterly impossible for me to board the communist bus.

Firstly, there’s an emphasis on “work” — in the sense of economic activity — and “progress” within communism that I believe; (a) is almost identical to that found in capitalist ideology, and (b) leads inevitably to large-scale ecological destruction, which is little short of suicidal.

Secondly, communism — like capitalism — is an ideology which insists upon viewing the world primarily in economic terms.

I just can’t get behind that. I’m not disputing that the economic model of human activity has valid uses and is appropriate for many situations. However my own position is that the vast majority of people who subscribe to an economic and/or political philosophy are guilty of ignoring Alfred Korzybski’s famous golden rule: “The map is not the territory”.

I believe that our civilisation is facing an imminent crisis; one that we are ill-equipped to deal with. That crisis could be loosely described as “unsustainability”. In other words, we have developed systems of production and distribution upon which we have come to depend, but which cannot be sustained even in the short term because they rely upon the consumption of non-renewable natural resources at a rate that cannot be maintained for very much longer.

As a result, I do not believe that the economic model of human activity should be given anything like the prominence (indeed, the primacy) it has enjoyed during the last few centuries. Partly because economics is so riven by politics that it engenders a kind of tribalism in those who view the world in economic terms. A tribalism we can ill afford right now. And partly because economics is an extremely limited map; one that ends up actually contradicting reality when a certain narrow set of preconditions are not met. But because so many people fail to grasp Korzybski’s golden rule, those contradictions are simply ignored — occasionally even openly denied against all the evidence — by those who seek the comfort of a simple model of reality.

I’ve recently completed a Master’s thesis on Group Psychodynamics. I believe that a synthesis of psychodynamics and systems-theory will provide the best model with which to understand the issues surrounding sustainability. We should also be cautious, of course, about mistaking that map for the territory, but I believe that it will prove to be a far more useful one, all told, over the coming years and decades.

Leastways, it will do if anyone bothers to consult it.

Road to … where?

So broadly speaking, where would this map take us?

Firstly profit needs to be eliminated as the primary motive for the production and distribution of food, energy and all non-renewable resources. Concentrations of power and capital need to be curtailed in all but the most narrow of circumstances. Biodiversity should be preserved as a matter of extreme urgency and the conversion of currently ‘untouched’ land into agricultural or urban land should cease immediately.

Economic activity needs to be minimised. Not maximised as is the current trend. This is not a prescription for starvation. “Minimised” does not mean eliminated, and a policy of minimisation would involve differentiating between essential and non-essential activity; retaining the former in as efficient a manner as possible while eliminating the latter if it consumes any non-renewable natural resources.

Non-essential economic activity could continue so long as it is sustainable (under a strict definition of sustainability). In the words of Gregory Bateson:

[A sustainable civilisation] shall consume unreplaceable natural resources only as a means to facilitate necessary change (as a chrysalis in metamorphosis must live on its fat). For the rest, the metabolism of the civilisation must depend upon the energy income which Spaceship Earth derives from the sun.

It goes without saying that the replacement of our current unsustainable life-support systems (the production and distribution of food and other essentials) with sustainable substitutes will itself require a significant investment of those “unreplaceable natural resources”. This is unavoidable, though we should obviously strive to make the process as efficient as possible.

All of this needs to be done in an environment of rapidly decreasing consumption in those areas currently over-consuming and a planned, incremental increase of consumption (particularly food) in those areas currently experiencing shortages (this will hopefully prevent the movement of large populations which itself consumes resources in a number of direct and indirect ways).

A large number of powers currently enjoyed by central governments need to be delegated to local communities and the localisation of production and consumption should be encouraged where possible.

Conversely, some powers need to be denied to “the public” entirely. Whether or not a population votes to continue — for example — burning petrol in their private cars, is entirely irrelevant. Such activity is damaging to humanity and the planet as a whole, and those who decide to act in that way should be prevented. This is why democracy will have to be abandoned. Local communities should be organised along democratic lines, but their powers limited by a framework of rules defined by an understanding of sustainability.

Oh, there’s plenty more, but that should be enough to be getting on with. I trust, though, that I’ve provided enough information to demonstrate that I’m not a stooge of the British Labour Party trying to score partisan points against the tories in order to keep Gordon Brown in power…?

Damian Green is a tory MP in Britain. This means he’s almost certainly an enemy of social justice. In fact, his voting record places him firmly on the right of his already right-wing party. The best you can say about him is that he isn’t part of the tory religious tendency (on issues like abortion or embryology). Other than that though… he’s in favour of torturing dogs, does not support equal rights for homosexuals and counts Ian Paisley high among his political friends. Not a nice man.

So from a strictly personal point of view, the fact that he’s just been the subject of a little bit of police harrassment doesn’t upset me all that much. In fact, if people like Damian Green got harrassed a bit more by the police, then maybe they wouldn’t be so damn quick to champion the harrassment of others (his opposition to drug-law reform and stance on asylum seekers being just two examples of that championing).

So how did this harrassment manifest itself in Mr. Green’s case? Well it turns out he was suspected of releasing classified government documents into the public domain (“leaking” as it’s known). As a result he was arrested, questioned and then released without charge.

That the tory party is describing this as “Stalinesque” is the final proof (if proof be need be) that they’ve completely lost the plot. Certainly the tories aren’t above a wee bit of historical revisionism. We all know that. But are they really saying that one of the primary characteristics of Stalin’s regime was that political opponents were questioned for a few hours prior to being released? It’s 20 years since I read a biography of Stalin, but my memory isn’t that bad, surely!

Don’t get me wrong, clearly what’s happened here is a little heavy-handed and demonstrates the craven hypocrisy of the Brown administration. When it suits the Labour party they are more than willing to leak stuff to the media. In fact, they’ve got such a consistent track-record of leaking stuff that it hardly raises an eyebrow any more. It’s got to the point where the Labour government leaking information is almost considered “official channels”. That the police aren’t banging on the doors of cabinet ministers and hauling them off for questioning on a regular basis demonstrates that there’s a double-standard at work. And when a government starts to employ the police to enforce its double-standards then they really need to be replaced.

But the last people that should be replacing them are a bunch of dangerous fools who are willing to cry “Stalin” when one of their own gets questioned for a few hours and then released, but who stay silent at — and indeed support — the systematic harrassment of others.

I don’t recall the Tory outcry when police kicked down a door in Forest Gate and shot an unarmed suspect. I don’t recall the tories accusing the police of ‘Stalinesque’ tactics that day. In fact, just to demonstrate how divorced these fools are from reality, how utterly self-serving in their outlook, a Tory spokesman has described Green’s arrest as “unprecedented in its heavy-handedness”.

Unprecedented? Really? What complete tossers those tories truly are.