Category Archive: POLITICS
The General Strike
(by Julian Symons) 13 May 1926 – the General Strike in Britain ended this day. People thought Marxism was through in Britain as a result but like Mao in exile, it would return. Calling a strike requires keen judgment because the reaction of the public as a whole might be sympathetic, hostile, or mixed. One example is the pilots’ strike in Australia in 1989, which resulted in the pilots, and their union, being blown out of the sky. Another famous campaign was the Miners’ strike of the mid 1980s in England, when organized labour found out that the majority of the…
Continue Reading →Eichmann in Jerusalem
(by Hannah Arendt) The Varnished Culture finished this work none the wiser but better informed. Valuable as all eye-witness accounts are, it is nonetheless a moot point as to whether the ultimate Nazi bureaucrat is worth study at all. A trickier topic is the Stockholm-style compliance by some Jewish leaders, and touching on that exposes the author to a charge of excessive severity.
Continue Reading →Defend the Realm
Kim Philby
(by Christopher Andrew) (Other editions entitled The Defence of the Realm) The author is suited to the task of telling MI5’s story and not just because he’s a Cambridge man. Impeccably credentialed and given an exclusive entreé to classified material, Mr Andrew provides a rational, impartial and exquisitely detailed work, easy to read and to read compulsively.
Continue Reading →Chomsky and Dershowitz
(by Howard Friel) Hysterical (yet deeply researched and readable) tract, designed to prove that Chomsky is Yahweh and Dershowitz is Satan. The author is obsessed with extrapolating individual examples of injustice (of which there are many) and rendering them into a damning case against Israel, without apparently considering the existential threat invoking these crimes and misdemeanors. [Peter notes: recently I received a comment from somebody called Hans, who said: “Obviously you’re a shill for the Israeli worldview.” I mulled this one over, considered my usual response of either offering a grovelling apology or expression of gratitude for being noticed, but…
Continue Reading →Burr
(by Gore Vidal) A knowing, rollicking account of the early Republic. Vidal smashes the Jeffersonian myth but creates a more interesting figure of history in lieu. Burr’s uneasy, half-respectful relationship with Alexander Hamilton, whom he ultimately killed in a duel, is particularly interesting, although contentiously handled. Vidal paints a vivid, unflattering portrait of Thomas Jefferson, the ultimate effect of which is to confirm his stature. But it’s a close-run thing: here is Burr reflecting on the 3rd President: “He was the most charming man I have ever known, as well as the most deceitful. Were the philosopher’s charm less, the…
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