Posted by David Wearing
on November 2, 2009, 7:35 am, in reply to "Just before we draw the line under this"
: Seriously risqué discussion, on the other
: hand, would show how the Guardian itself has
: specifically contributed to Britain's
: foreign policy “deficit” through its
: war-rationalising editorials. Even more
: risqué would be Rusbridger and the Guardian
: permitting any such criticism within its own
: pages. That's the true content measure of
: dissenting output.
John, lets be crystal clear about this shall we? No mainstream political party, no major newspaper, and no "concerned policy-maker inside the foreign office" is considering, after the next election, implementing a programme of:
* Total, immediate and unilateral nuclear disarmament
* The end of all UK support for tyrannies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States
* The end of all support for Israel
* The total withdrawal of all UK armed forces from Western Asia and the end of all further aggression in the region
* The end of the British arms industry
* The end of the British financial sector as we know it today; and
* Serious measures to end the threat of climate change, including a massive aid programme to the developing world.
Those policies have the potential to save or contribute to the saving of many, many millions of lives, and the improvement of the lives of many millions more around the globe. That's the actual substance of the article. Next to that, I'm afraid it is your scare-quote drenched litany of insufficiently "risqué" words and phrases that comes across as superficial, rather than the piece I had published.
Given the real impact that the policies I described would have on millions of human lives, articulating their value, and encouraging a large and wide audience to campaign for them, is something whose worth need not be described to anyone whose interest in such issues is remotely serious.
I have to say I find it sad that a minority within the ML community have become so fixated on the Guardian that in their eyes no discussion of any other topic in that paper is substantively worthwhile unless it criticises the paper itself. This is an absurdly narrow position, based on an entirely one-dimensional analysis of the importance of the media.
It is particularly depressing to see the propaganda model - a serious and sophisticated analytical tool - being turned in the hands of some here into a crude bludgeon, applied without serious discrimination or thought.
David Wearing
http://www.democratsdiary.co.uk