Reasons why the government of Iran is paranoid

Ezra Klein points to a good comment made by Richard Clark on the Tehran regime . Sometimes, it is useful to step into the other chap's shoes. Tehran sees itself facing a state with a US military presence (Iraq) to its west and another one (Afghanistan) to its east. It also has a border with another country (Pakistan), with a fairly pro-US government.

If an opposing power to the US had soliders in Canada and Mexico, then the US would surely be nervous. Using this analogy, it can be seen why Tehran is acting in a militaristic fashion and trying hard to get its own nuclear bomb.

It is interesting, though, how rarely commentators do Mr. Clark's intellectual exercise. Right-wing Americans, who are so nationalistic themselves, seem unable to understand that other peoples have equally strong nationalistic views - hence their failure to comprehend the opposition that Arab nationalists would have to their invasion of Iraq and, for that matter, their failure to understand why they are unpopular with progressive-minded nationalists in South America.

Investigative blogging from Unity on the case of the registrar and gay marriage

There is some good investigative blogging on the internet, which I often don't have the time to read and look into - let alone the skill and intelligence to do myself. A good example is this article on Liberal Conspiracy pointing out a potential conflict of interest on the employment tribunal that upheld the right of a Christian registrar to refuse to conduct civil partnerships for gay people.

Crime falls

Septic Isle has a good article up on the fall in crime figures recorded by the police and by the British Crime Survey . As it doesn't fit the media narrative, it has been ignored by most of the media and the tabloid press - illustrating once again that the press follows an agenda rather than facts. Journalists should always bear in mind C.P. Snow's legendary dictum "Comment is free but facts are sacred".

Real wage squeeze

Chris Dillow points out that real wages have been squeezed . So it is workers' pay that seem to be bearing the effect of the economic downturn - not profits and dividends. Definitely a sign that the bargaining power of labour is too weak and that of capital is too strong.

Richard Gott on Hugo Chavez

I have recently read Richard Gott's book entitled Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution which covers the period up until 2005. The book is sympathetic to him and his movement and casts light on the history of Venezuela and the circumstances that led to the rise of the left in this small South American country.

Venezuela, being in possession of significant oil reserves, did well in the oil boom of the 1970s. After then, though, the economy went into decline and it fell back from being a middle-income country into being a poor one once more. Inequality was and is very significant in the country as well - with the bulk of its wealth being in the hands of a small elite and a fairly small middle-class.

The economy had been fairly dirigiste, but there was an increasing move towards neo-liberalism as the 1980s moved on. The former president Carlos Andres Perez made a comeback in 1988. He introduced a wave of neo-liberal reforms - despite having been a fan of the mixed-economy in his earlier tenure in the 1970s. The protests against the neo-liberal reforms were kicked off by a massive rise in fuel prices for buses - leading to a big increase in the bus fares that the poor had to pay. The wave of rioting and protests that followed was called the Caracazo.

The military suppressed the rioting with the loss of hundreds of lives. Gott sees this as a major part of the growth of left-wing feeling among the military. Ordinary soldiers did not want to use violence against their fellow-citizens and lost their respect (if they ever had any) for the current political leadership in Venezuela.

It was in these circumstances that Chavez led an attempted coup in 1992. He came to national prominence when, having been surrounded and captured by forces loyal to the government, he was allowed to address television to tell his fellow-conspirators to lay down their arms to stop any bloodshed.

The government of Perez faced another coup in 1992 and it then later fell and was replaced by another, similar, government of the right. The two main parties, Accion Democratia and Copei, still dominated Venezuela's parliament. Perez had been from AD. His successor was from Copei.

The new government issued an amnesty, enabling Chavez to be released from prison. He then went into politics. He became the leading publically-recognised figure on the small and divided Venezuelan Left.

He won the presidency in 1998 with 56.2% of the votes cast at the head of an alliance of parties. His alliance was then able to win a referendum on calling a new constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. That assembly was then elected - and Chavez supporters had the majority in it. It then drafted a new constitution and then that new constitution was approved by referendum. Fresh elections were then held for all elected offices under the terms of the new constitution in 2000. Chavez won again and his supporters won a majority in Parliament. The frequent votes in the period 1998-2000 show that Chavez had the support of the majority of the people.

The Right did not accept this and they plotted to remove him. In 2002, they staged a coup. The coup was defeated by loyal officers refusing to accept the misinformation put about by the plotters that Chavez had resigned. The poor of Caracas also marched en masse to the Presidential Palace to show their dislike of the junta that was assembling there. Gott points out how the private media outlets did their best to support the coup and presented a misleading view of events.

The next, and final, electoral test that Gott's book covers is the recall referendum. His opponents tried to recall Chavez mid-way through his term - as they were entitled to under the new constitution. Chavez won that electoral test too. Not accepting the fact that people didn't agree with them, the opposition cried foul and queried the electoral process. However, this seems to be a process that met with the approval of the Carter Centre, who were impartial observers of the situation.

In addition to the political narration, Gott engages in historical and sociological commentary - pointing out the significant but hidden racism of Venezuelan society. He also points to examples of progressive leaders elsewhere in South American history who have come from a military background. He challenges the idea that the military is inevitably a right-wing force - as many of its soldiers and junior officers come from poor, peasant and working-class origins.

British libel law

Liberal Conspiracy has a good article on the problems with British libel law and the changes that might be needed to make it more compatible with the idea of free speech . It seems that, so harsh are British libel laws on any website or publication that might be seen in the UK, that some US senators are having to propose special legislation to stop US citizens being prosecuted under a form of 'libel tourism' if what they have published is predominantly in the US but some people in Britain can see it!

State funeral for Thatcher?

It seems that there is to be a state funeral when Thatcher dies . I can't say I am a fan of the idea. This is not just because I disagree with her politics but that it is inconsistent with the way that other late prime ministers have been treated. If Attlee, who built the post-war welfare state settlement, was not honoured with a state funeral - then I do not see why Thatcher, who dismantled it, should be.

The failure of the non-executive directors of Northern Rock

Andreas Wittam-Smith points out that the non-executive directors who should have been keeping an eye on what Adam Applegarth and his management team were up to failed to do so. It does suggest that th existing structures of company governance are rather poor - or that non-executive directors are not doing their job.

The paranoia over child protection

This column in the Times points out that there seems to be a degree of paranoia over issues of child protection at the moment. This is giving children (and parents) the rather worrying and sinister message "trust no one" and thus poisoning the way that people in society relate to one another. It fails to acknowledge the fact that most people are not serious criminals and are not paedophiles.

A quote from Eisenhower

"Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen" ~ Dwight Eisenhower

Local government pay

In light of the pending local government strike over pay, Jon Rogers' blog has some posts from earlier in the year which seem to indicate that local government pay settlements have been below that of the private sector for most of the last couple of decades. While inflation has been 17.3% between 2002 and 2007, the pay rates for a typical local government job (at SCP-28) have gone up from £19,776 to £22,845 - a rise of just 15.5%.

On the idea of a League of Democracies

In the article on the UN Security Council's decision not to impose sanctions on the Zimbabwean regime , I pointed out that it is unrealistic to expect countries like Russia and China to oppose the undemocratic ZANU-PF regime in Harare when their own systems of government are not democratic.

The fact that many governments throughout the world do not have free and fair multi-party elections, means that the UN is not going to be a 'democratic' arena in the sense that some optimists imagined it might be. Because of this John McCain has proposed the idea of a 'League of Democracies' . This idea was also, apparently, mooted in the past by Madeline Albright.

However, it strikes me that forming such an organisation would be very difficult and, even if formed, it would not be able to do what some of its advocates assume it could do. Firstly, there would be the issue of which countries to designate as democracies. There is clear disagreement between commentators as to which regimes are democratic and which ones aren't. Virtually every government claims some democratic credentials, even if it is not. This definitional issue would be problematic.

Additionally, it is far from clear that the democratic countries of the world see eye-to-eye on different problems. For example, while the EU and the US take a critical attitude to the regime in Harare - I do not believe Japan does. In the case of Burma, it is also the case that the Indian government maintains good relations with the regime in Rangoon and so it would not be keen to co-operate in any international action against it. Each country - whether democratic or non-democratic - has historical, geographical and geopolitical reasons for acting the way it does on the international arena. Participation in a League of Democracies would not reduce their tensions and disagreements over key issues.

A further interesting point is - even if the EU, India, Japan and others agreed with setting up a League of Democracies - is whether the US would actually be willing to be supportive of it and entrust it with authority. The US is, more so than European countries, jealous of its national sovereignty and keen to guard it. As such, it would be unwilling to delegate much authority to any international body - whoever its members were. Additionally, if the cardinal principal of democracy is "one person, one vote"; then there is a strong case for weighting voting power in the League of Democracies - not on a "one country, one vote" system like the General Assembly and not giving certain countries vetoes like on the Security Council - but on the basis of countries' populations. This would of course mean that India would have more than 3 times the voting power of the USA. This would not be something the US would agree too. So, if McCain is elected US president and if he pushes ahead with the idea (two big 'ifs'!) then the surest way to call his bluff and see whether his commitment to democratic principles for international affairs is genuine or just rhetoric would be for India and the EU to agree on the condition that voting power in such a body was proportional to countries' population sizes . In such a scenario, I am sure McCain would backtrack fast!

The dangers of too much perfectionism

This article from Psychology Today points out the perils of perfectionism. It thinks that the US is becoming a more perfectionist society in the way it raises children and so making young people less willing to engage in the trial and error which is a form of learning. Perhaps the same can be said about Britain today.

Quote of the Day

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction" - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).

Zimbabwe and China

A UN Security Council resolution on Zimbabwe has failed as China and Russia have vetoed it . In a sense this is understandable as a country like China which is not democratic and one like Russia where the democratic process was merely for show at the last election is going to set a dangerous precedent by raising queries about Zimbabwe's sham election. Zimbabwe could easily point the finger at them and say that they are hypocrites for condemning it.

Additionally, it seems that Zimbabwe has built up trade relations with China over the past few years. If dealing with Mugabe is profitable, I can see that the Chinese would not be willing to see him fall.

It strikes me that, given the political systems of two of the permanent members of the Security Council, it is asking too much of it to condemn undemocratic behaviour within member states. It will normally only act in the case of blatant aggression across international borders.

Perhaps this shows the limitations of the UN, in so far as people expect more of it than it can actually deliver.

Are prison sentences a deterrent?

It is often argued that prison is a deterrent to criminals and, for that reason, prison sentences should be longer. Chris Dillow points out that this doesn't seem to be the case . Punishments for offenders under 18 are more lenient that for those over 18. Yet crime is not that much lower among people who have just passed their 18th birthday than those who are just below it.

It suggests that, when they commit crime, people are not really thinking about the consequences of getting caught. They are assuming they will get away with it. The use of prison may thus be more as a way of keeping them off the streets rather than as a deterrent per se.

The next by-election

Following the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, there is actually another one pending on 24th July in Glasgow East. This one will actually have candidates from all the major parties standing.

Labour won it at the last general election with 60% of the votes cast. However, the current low opinion poll ratings for Labour and the fact that the SNP government in Edinburgh seem to be quite popular means that the result of the by-election is in doubt. For the SNP to win it, they would need a 22% swing. This has been achieved by the SNP below, most notably in the Glasgow Govan by-election in 1988 .

And, furthermore, to add some confusion to voters who don't read their ballot papers properly, it seems that the Labour candidate (Margaret Curran) and the Scottish Socialist Party candidate (Frances Curran) share a surname and will thus be next to each other on the ballot paper.

Haltemprice and Howden by-election result

The by-election has seen David Davies returned with 71.6% of the votes cast on a 34.5% turnout . So, the voters seem to have endorsed him - but not with as large a majority as I noted some punters were predicting.