Category Archives: Politics

the big society, riots and “spiral dynamics”

By bananabrain | Published: August 15, 2011

obviously, a great deal has been written about the riots to date and a great deal of predictable outpouring has also taken place. what i wanted to offer to this debate is, however, along more behavioural lines.

i have for some time been aware of the powerful analytical frameworks for bio-psycho-social systems developed by the american psychologist dr clare graves and systematised for practical application by don beck and chris cowan in the excellent book “spiral dynamics” (i’m not affiliated with anyone concerned, incidentally). at the risk of sounding like somewhat of a “fanboy”, as i believe it is called on teh interwebs, i am convinced it constitutes an important piece of intellectual real estate for the understanding of complex socio-political systems, particularly in behavioural terms.

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Also posted in Activism, Blogosphere, Civil Rights, Communalism, Crime, Democracy, Education, Ethics, Exegesis, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Media, Misc, Moral relativism, Multiculturalism, Political Correctnes gone mad!, The Far Left, The Left, The Regressive Left, UK Politics | Leave a comment

A disillusioned nationalist exposes the BNP

By Guest | Published: February 1, 2011

This is a guest post by 17th Angel. Some details have been removed in the interests of anonymity.

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Also posted in Activism, Anti Fascism, Blogosphere, Democracy, European Fascism, Identity Politics, Immigration, Racism, UK Politics, Your View | 3 Comments

The David Kelly conspiracy

By Ziryab | Published: August 22, 2010

This is a cross-post from Harry’s Place

According to the Daily Mail (ho, ho ho), only one in five of you believe David Kelly committed suicide.

According to an exclusive Mail opinion poll, only one in five people accepts the Hutton Inquiry’s finding that the government weapons inspector took his own life.

The survey also reveals that eight out of ten people want a full inquest. With senior MPs making the same demand, the Coalition is under strong pressure to act.

It comes as a medical report says it was ‘impossible’ that Dr Kelly bled to death in the way described by the inquiry.

The “impossible circumstances” of Kelly’s death are described by the pathologist who examined Kelly in today’s Sunday Times (paywall) as:

“an absolute classic case of self-inflicted injury. You could illustrate a textbook with it. If it were anyone else and you were to suggest there’s something foul about it, you would be referred for additional training.”

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Also posted in Media, UK Politics | 2 Comments

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is digging mass graves for American soldiers in preparation for a war over its nuclear programme, according to a former senior commander.

By Ziryab | Published: August 15, 2010

This is a cross-post by Richard Spencer.


The scene in the south of Iran where hundreds of mass graves have been dug

General Hossein Moghadam, the Guard’s former deputy chief, was speaking after film footage showed strings of freshly dug graves in the south of the country.

They were close to the site of war graves for the dead of the long war between Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which devastated the region in the 1980s.

“The mass graves that used to be for burying Saddam’s soldiers have now been prepared again for US soldiers, and this is the reason for digging this big number of graves,” Gen Moghadam told the Associated Press, which obtained the footage.

The warning is unlikely to be more than symbolic. No-one expects a land invasion, should the White House authorise a strike on nuclear facilities, while Iran has so far suggested counter-action is most likely to be aimed at American allies in the Gulf and Western bases there.

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Also posted in International Affairs | 2 Comments

The Mughal Caliphate

By Ziryab | Published: August 14, 2010

This is a re-post of an article by Raziq first posted in January 2010

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Islamist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, Al-Muhajiroun and the Muslim Brotherhood claim that Muslims were ruled by a single political leadership which started from the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the 6th century and lasted until the last days of the Ottoman Empire in 1924. According to Islamists, this political leadership looked after the interests of all Muslims worldwide. The central aim of Islamist groups today is to recreate this leadership by uniting the 52 or so Muslim-majority countries in the world into a single state ruled by a single ruler (Caliph). They refer to this totalitarian system as the Khilafah (or the caliphate).

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Also posted in Education, History, Islamism | 21 Comments

Another story of government advisers undermining government ministers (this time in the battle against extremism)

By Ziryab | Published: August 4, 2010

This is a cross-post from Conservative Home

By Tim Montgomerie

Hats off to The Sunday Times (£) for yesterday’s scoop exposing senior Home Office officials who rubbished the Home Secretary to supporters of the Indian Islamist leader Zakir Naik – after she had banned him from coming into the country because of his extremist preaching.

The pair – both employed by the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism – went behind Theresa May’s back and told friends of the excluded televangelist Zakir Naik that they were “gutted and mortified” by their ministerial boss’s decision, which they considered to be “a huge error of judgement”.

One high ranking civil servant, Sabin Khan, has been suspended pending an investigation. Also in the frame is Charles Farr, the OSCT’s Director General.

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Also posted in Activism, Entryism, UK Politics | 4 Comments

meanwhile, in israel…

By bananabrain | Published: June 4, 2010

with the flotilla imbroglio (or fiasco, if you prefer) in full swing, yours truly has just arrived back from the zionist entity, where numerous representatives of clan bananabrain continue to live as normal a life as one might expect in what hussein shobokshi of asharq al-awsat describes as “a state established on a lie based on a myth” – and he was chosen as one of the “global leaders for tomorrow” by the world economic forum in 1995, so 15 years later he must be therefore a global leader and not at all the sort of bloke to make wild accusations about a massacre of 60 people (oh, hang on, what am i saying?). i’ll write separately about the flotilla stuff when i have a moment, but i thought it might be interesting to put up a few insights that i think you’ll find interesting, based as they are on a visit on a ground and interacting with normal, sensible [well, members of my family at any rate], well-educated israelis as well as a range of other social observations.

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Also posted in Civil Rights, Democracy, Freedom of Religion, International Affairs, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Extremism | 13 Comments

seven modest proposals for the british jewish community

By bananabrain | Published: March 16, 2010

the ferocious but charming miriam shaviv over at the jc is blogging a number of “daily proposals to transform the british jewish community” during march. i was discussing this with my redoubtable other half over friday night dinner and we thought the following might be worth submission:

1. transparency at the jewish leadership council

ok, we know who the board of deputies are. we know what it’s for. we know how it’s funded. we know how you get to be on it. we know who it represents. now, we have this new organisation called the “jewish leadership council”. on it, you have various movers and shakers, you’ve got the vc/banking/property tycoons, you’ve got the charity/safety/israel activists, you’ve got synagogue movement machers, you’ve got access, you’ve got international connections, you’ve got lords, baronesses, knights and the chair of ujs – you’ve got two women and no rabbis, for some reason. you’ve got no haredim, for some other reason. you’ve got leaders from the most broad-based and influential organisations in the community – but what are they for? clearly, this is an influential bunch of people, but who chooses them? who decided that there should be a jewish leadership council in the first place? how are they accountable? what is their strategy? what is their relationship with the board? how is it funded? i for one would like to know.

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Also posted in Activism, Antisemitism, Democracy, Education, Entryism, Environmental, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Extremism, Misc, Obscurantism | Tagged , | 6 Comments

“well, they’re a bit extreme, but they do such good work bringing people back to judaism!”

By bananabrain | Published: January 29, 2010

david t from harry’s place forwarded me this cartoon by eli valley, whose satirical strips appear monthly in the leading us jewish magazine “the forward”.

scary kiruv cartoon

scary kiruv cartoon

on reading it, i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. on one hand, it’s a caricature of the position of the kiruv (“outreach”) organisations, but on the other hand, once you start digging into their theology, their internal politics, their fundraising activities and their influence on the jewish community and israeli politics, it’s hard not to find them scary.

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Also posted in Entryism, Freedom of Expression, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Obscurantism, Sectarianism | 57 Comments

a few good rabbis?

By bananabrain | Published: January 18, 2010

for those of you who aren’t aware of it, this has not been a good couple of years for the orthodox, “strictly-”orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities. corruption around kosher slaughterhouses and conversions, sex scandals, money-laundering, drug smuggling, you name it. all the usual justifications are made, of course, all the usual people accept them and all the usual people sneer at them.

in such an environment, it’s extremely helpful to be able to point to people who can stand up and say in no uncertain terms: this isn’t right. excusing it is even worse. as it says in the Mishnah: where there are no men, at least you should try and act like a man. i am encouraged to see at least some orthodox rabbis swimming against the tide of denial although, of course, not that surprised to see the perennial awkward squad-nik and contrarian (and my own much revered teacher) rabbi jeremy rosen, writing in haaretz:

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Also posted in Activism, Education, Ethics, Interfaith | 3 Comments

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