The Exile

One of the things that an observant reader of the wankblogs will notice is just how keen the wankbloggers are to take something out of context, or just plain misrepresent it. Little Gimlet did it with his North Korean exercise and Norman Geras tried it on with his smear directed at Hugo Chavez Frias.

Geras has quite a bit of form when it comes to games like this, since he also did it with his Sudan posting. Now he is up to the same trick again, this time over European attitudes to war.

The Guardian's Simon Jenkins has a piece which takes issue with America's use of war as a diplomatic tool, and which argues that Europe has given up on wars of choice. Geras takes a sentence out of the article, the one which runs that Europeans "have tested war to destruction as a way of settling the world's ills and reject it", and then created a full posting which attacks this notion.

Now everything that Geras says may very well be true, but that is not what Jenkins had argued. As with the Sudan posting, Geras has set up an Aunt Sally and then knocked that down.

Here is the full paragraph, in which Jenkins discusses the words of the writer James Sheehan:

If you look at the passage in its entirety, it is obvious that what Jenkins is attacking is the notion that wars of choice are a good thing. Wars like the one against Iraq, wars of "colonial violence" spring to mind. Wars that Geras wanked so enthusiastically for in other words.

Now nothing in Jenkins' essay can be taken as meaning that if Germany, say, was ever attacked the young men of Germany would not rally to her defence. It is also not to say that Germans do not have an aversion to war - given the number of German women who ended up polishing the knobs of Ivan Gangbangski and his mates back in 1945 that is hardly a surprise, either.

However, the basic point is that Geras has created a posting which, not for the first time, uses as its hinge a misrepresentation of what someone has written.

Why do they do it? I think that the buggers have run out of ideas to defend the indefensible. On the basis of that hunch I suspect that they just hope that enough people will accept their words as they are written, and not check back to the sources.

I think that the silly sods are that desperate, in other words.

It is good fun to watch thieves fall out, and what follows is a classic of its kind. The Drink Soaked Hand Shandyists For War have been a semi-regular target of this blog's contempt for years, but a new contender in the spill it over the thumb stakes has now entered the race. Mark O'Atilla Hoare - could I make that monicker up? - is a mate of Gimlet and is, therefore, as pompous and opinionated as you would expect from one of that short-arsed little fucker's associates.

The argument itself is a trivial as you might expect, given participants like these, but it's the abuse that is being tossed about that makes it so funny. The Shandyists accuse O'Atilla of belonging to the group who have "lost the faith of their youth," and the Gimletista goes on about "unrealisable left wing ideals".

Do you see why they are all so risible? British socialism doesn't have its roots in either idealism or faith, because it is not a religion. It has its social roots in the rough and ready collectivism of urban Britain.

Ideologically it appeals to those who have an atavistic loathing for the employer and the employer's man. The notion that bastard work involves boss man's place, boss man's profits and boss man's problems and that we are just there to pick up our wages is an integral part of that same easy egalitarianism that I mentioned earlier.

Idealists, like the Gimletista and the Shandyists have always had a problem with this truism, but that just reflects the fact that they came to their socialism not through a sense of economic self-interest, but via a one-handed reading of the Communist Manifesto. Thus in the past, early steam-driven Gimletistas would argue that under socialism, workers would skip merrily to their work, secure in the knowledge that they were working for themselves and the betterment of society. Yes, well that was a load of old wank as well, wasn't it?

The rest of us came to socialism because we don't want to have to labour to keep some fat-arsed gaffer behind his desk, giving out his old buck. We want to share out the bastard work so that no bugger has to bust a ball to earn a buttie and we can get down to the pub a lot quicker to get the taste of what will still be bastard work out of our gobs. We also want to see the boss dangling from a tree, legs kicking in the breeze, and his bitch reduced to sucking cock to survive. Socialism is also about revenge, lads. It's also about revenge.

Now it may very well be that we will have to settle for a high tax, high inflation regimen, but that actually has an advantage over a tall tree and a short rope, in that these creatures get to survive, get to be humiliated, day after day after day. That is the way it used to be; that is the way it will be again.

Update, 19 April, 1.35am:

We would just like to take this opportunity of welcoming Mark O'Atilla Hoare to the blog. Mark blessed us with his presence at 7.05am BST and stayed for just under four minutes. He logged on from Southend-on-Sea, where we hope that he is having a dirty weekend. We also hope that it is with a girl...

We would like to know why he is not tucked up at this time in the morning? We hope that he did not shit the bed.

Update, 19 April, 3.00am:

The Exile has now been doubly blessed. Mark returned at 8.22am and stayed until 8.30. Oh joy! Oh rapture!

Oh fuck it, I'm off to bed.

Do you remember the British sailors who were taken prisoner by Iran in march of last year? They were well treated and released soon after. The wankblogs had a field day as they screamed about aggression and the like. Some tried to do sarcasm, but it is impossible to pull that off when you are as much of a mong as this tosspot. Anyway, you get the basic idea: they wanked furiously in the hope that war would come as well as them.

It has now emerged that the British sailors were not in Iraqi waters as Parliament and the British people were told, but in waters that are disputed between Iraq and Iran. So the Iranians were telling the truth and the British weren't. The government lied in other words.

Will heads roll? Probably not because we are so used to the lies that this government tells on an almost daily basis that one more added to the collection doesn't seem all that important.

If you have been follwing the news over the past few days then you will have noticed the glee with which the American media have reported the story that Muqtada al-Sadr would disband his militia if so instructed by the senior Shia religious leaders. Not just the media, but a fair few British wankblogs were getting ready to greet the news that the Sadr militia were no more with a furious pud pull, followed by a great spurt all over the monitor screen.

Sorry, boys, but you can put your todgers away because it isn't going to happen. They've told him to keep his army intact.

As Juan Cole pointed out, Sadr has a habit of offering to disband his militia from time to time because it makes him look all sweetness and light in Shia eyes. The good Dr Cole also pointed out that the chances of the militia actually being disbanded within a week of its victory over the imperialist forces and their stooges in Basra were non-existent.

Lads, what can I say? This is a no-wank moment.

Hello, Dave, how's it been for you these past 23 years? Rather better than it has been for the Wapping print workers that you helped put on the dole, I'll bet. I was never one of your students at Ruskin College, Oxford, but I was sitting finals when your Sunday Times article came out. Dave, let me tell you that it was a miracle that anyone passed, given the uproar that your brain fart caused at the college.

Enough of this merry banter. In your Guardian piece you argue that if "the sense of duty to community, environment, polity and nation" is taken away, then "collapse awaits". That's fine, Dave, but a little bit of consistency is needed here.

The working class had just such a sense of duty and community that came via their autonomously created structures, such as the unions. Structures which you did your level best to destroy when you had your brain fart moment, Dave.

All those years ago, you argued that the Wapping printers' strike was essentially reactionary, and you went on to speculate what the likes of Engels would have thought about it all. Guess what, Dave? You were dead right.

The unions, especially the craft unions such as the printers, were incredibly conservative. Do you remember all those disputes about differentials? They came about because the craft unions really just wanted to keep the unskilled in their place, Dave.

The point is that you cannot now argue for everyone to know their place when you did so much to smash that sense of place a generation ago.

When you were having your brain fart, I took the trouble to wander around the Senior Common Room to gauge the members' opinions of you. Dr. Jack Eames had always been dubious about your attitudes and he dismissed you as an "intellectual grasshopper". The late Raph Samuel said that he never expected much else "from a man like that," and Dr. Victor Treadwell just rolled his eyes in exasperation.

They had your ticket well marked, didn't they?

Well, that was good fun, wasn't it? Getting it censored was even better because the only person that I can think of who would take offence at my words was Dave Selbourne himself. Welcome to The Exile, Dave, and if you want to know what I have been doing to help shag capitalism I suggest you have a look at the Working Class archive, especially the internal colonialism posting.

Here's a good one - Richard Corbett is one of Nu-Labour's prime stooges in Brussels who decided a few days ago to set up his very own blog. Like many a wankblogger before him he decided not to allow comments, presumably for fear that the anti-EC brigade would arrive in force to make him look a tit.

Not to worry because one such fine brigade member has done just that - by setting up a blog that scrapes Corbett's drivel as soon as it is posted. The only difference between the two blogs is that the copier allows open comments: and what comments they are!

Corbett seems to have rounded up as many creatures as he can find to hit the blog with pompous comments - it reminds me a bit of when Gimlet's mates arrived here giving it lip and providing me with easy laughs. What is it about the Nu-Labour crowd that makes them such humourless, sanctimonious gits?

More importantly, don't they realise that all they do when they scream like prize lapdogs is provide yet more publicity for the people that are out to make them look even more bovine than than they do normally?

I'm not a great fan of spoof blogs to be honest. I think that if someone has something to say then they should either say it under their real name or use just one monicker.

There is a new spoof blog on the block, written by a Harry's Place webmong who uses the monicker of Wardytron. I found out about it on about the 17th of this month, and couldn't decide what to do. Spilling the beans would have been fun, but the webmong had added links to my sites from his cod blog. Links are like shags and I just can't get enough of either, so I decided to let the little pretty boy carry on with his pretty little game.

A few more links later and I began to feel that I had made the right move, but now the truth is coming out so it's time to stick the boot in.

Sorry, webmong, but it is not a good idea to gloat about your activities all over the fucking net.

Do you remember when we had a cheap laugh at the expense of a warmonger who compared the average 50,000 turnout at anti-war rallies to the 60 million who live in the country? Well, now it's time for another good chuckle. Only now we get to laugh all the 'mongers to say nothing of their stooges.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, various types have been trying to save face by bringing over to the UK over 20,000 Iraqi collaborators to save them from whatever nasty fate usually befalls those who supported the imperial side when the empire finally falls. They screamed! They shouted! They organised a fucking petition...

Out of 60 million people in the UK only 1,066 have so far signed the on-line petition to save those poor harkis. The Exile wouldn't mind if people were being asked to march, but all they have to do is stick their names down on an electronic petition - and only one thousand are willing so to do!

And what names they are: the only ones missing are Ivan Erection, Nick Urzdown and Mustapha Slash!

Not to worry, folks. Having got you all wound up, Dan Hardie the blogger who came up with this lunatic idea in the first place is doing . . . sweet fuck all. His penultimate posting was on the 24th August and his last on the 5th September. He did announce the Commons' meeting that is due to take place next month, however, and the whole affair has probably helped his journalistic career no end.

How sad it must be for the 'mongers. They can't even get up a petition worth its salt.

A quick trawl around the world of wankbloggery shows that not a single one of the sad-arsed losers has even commented on the cut and run from Basra yet. The nearest that any of them even comes to commenting on Iraq is a rather pathetic one-liner from the old Wankmaster-General. He compares the numbers turning out to anti-war demonstrations with the total population of the UK. To prove what? God knows, but it probably means something to the wanking tendency.

The Exile, who is a tolerant soul, could point out that all the those demonstrations in the 1960s didn't end America's war against Vietnam.

However, let's have a cheap laugh instead: The Euston Manifesto, a failure that the Wankmaster-General was heavily involved in, managed to attract a grand total of 2,929 signatories to its lofty aims. Except it didn't, because a big chunk of those people who signed up were porn-merchants looking for punters!

So, what's better? You can be a part of the movement that can say "we told you so" to those who cheered on aggression. Alternatively, you can support a manifesto with a website that is read by punters looking for something to assist the imagination as Mrs Hand and her five daughters go to work.

People, there is no contest here.

As the American economy weakens, and as the country's army gets more bogged down in Iraq, many countries are taking the opportunity to create new trading arrangements that will bypass the Americans and their globalised system completely. Venezuela and Belarus are the latest to sign bilateral agreements that involve barter trade and which ignore the dollar. As Neal Clark says, we are "witnessing the formation of an alternative power bloc," one which began with Venezuela and Cuba, grew to involve Bolivia and now has roped in Belarus.

The response of many toy-town leftists to these moves is to sneer from the sidelines. If everything is not as Leon Trotsky predicted it, prior to this death almost 70 years ago, then they are not interested.

Actually what they are not interested in is helping to destroy globalised capitalism. This is the bastard offshoot of the old capitalism that we grew up with and it is the number one enemy for the new century. If it can be destroyed, then the underlying capitalist system that all socialists want to smash will have suffered a serious reversal.

The destruction of globalisation is not the end of the war, in other words, but it could mark the end of the beginning. Besides, we need a victory after all these years of defeat. So the crushing of imperialism in Iraq is one step down the road, support for alternative economic arrangements between sovereign states is another.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize, folks. If we are serious about smashing capitalism, then ending globalisation is as good a place as any to start.

It had to happen sooner or later, of course, but I never expected it so quickly. The save the harki crowd have split into warring factions. It always happens with Trots, and that is why they are such contemptible little arsewipes. That said, the first split came in less than a month which has to be some sort of record.

Anyway, this sad-arsed admirer of Leon the loser has decided to take his ball home and not play at saving harkis.

Keep on fighting, lads, you're doing fine.

By the way, this posting is also the third clue in the guess the implement competition.

Update:

Just for those of you who are coming over here from comment 59 at Crooked Timber. If you don't understand my "save the stills·" comment, then remember that you are not allowed to call the buggers harkis. So I called them stills - 'cos they are still fucking harkis!

It will be noted that four British soldiers have died this week. To what extent those deaths can be attributed to the demand to save the Iraqi collaborators is impossible to judge. One might speculate and say that it is possible that the Iraqis now know that the British are getting ready to leave, and that they will increase their attacks because everyone in Basra now wants to be on the winning team.

If that is the case then warmongery has yet more deaths at its door. Not a single 'monger has called for the Iraqi traitors to be pulled out with the British. That leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, because it looks to the jaundiced observer these that these 'mongers care more about the lives of 600 or so traitors than they do their own people.

Folks, it's time to play the blame game, and the rules are very simple. Are you a warwanker who is determined to go down with the sinking ship? Then start attacking anyone who wanked with you at the start of the war against Iraq, but who has since recanted. Johann Hari will do nicely, because not only has he recanted, but he has attacked one who still holds to The True Faith. Thus he is doubly damned, once for the sin of apostasy and then for being mouthy about it.

You can claim that the heretic has got his facts wrong, that he is a plagiarist, that is guilty of distorting the facts. You can even pick tiny little holes in the heretic's argument, and then go on to claim that the pretext for war should have been "humanitarian grounds," and wasn't Saddam Hussein a very bad man indeed?

The Exile can understand this type of apostasy - the heretic laying down his friends for his life and all that - but enough people are going to be around to remind both heretics and true believers that the road to Baghdad ran through Belgrade.

What the Exile cannot understand and finds difficult to forgive, is that having waded through all this self-serving shit, and having come across plenty of references to the poor, doomed Iraqis, he did not once see any reference to the 163 British servicemen who have so far died in a doomed adventure that aimed at making the Middle East safe for western capitalism.

Neither, amidst all, the claims of solidarity with the Iraqi trades unionists and working class, did he find any reference to the British working class who have now had to put up with 30 years of neo-liberal shit.

Just think what could have been done with all the time and energy that has been wasted on Iraq. No wonder the working man is indifferent to politics: politics has betrayed him.

So there you go, porn merchants are not stupid and they know where the punters are to be found. Thus they swarmed to this page 'cos they knew that it was chock full of punter types. Rather than admit that their site catered to wankers - of whatever hue - the decents who run the place stopped letting people sign the manifesto instead. The page still announces that 2,929 people had signed up, presumably before the ban came into force, but doesn't state how many of them are in reality merchants looking for punters.

The Exile doesn't really understand the problem. Both Eustonites and porno punters are in the habit of shooting their wads over their thumbs, so why not just accept that the two are made for each other and have done with it?