No big posts or rants about the Jubilee here - sometimes it is just better to let the other side have their day, knowing there will be other times to fight on an issue. Roll on King Charles!
One of the sillier claims I spotted about the Queen as a force for political good deserves a hearing however. Lord Alan Watson is Chair of the Council of Commonwealth Societies and author of 'The Queen and the USA'. He has an interview in the May 2012 issue of Surrey Downs Magazine, entitled 'The Queen's Reach.' Try this gem on how marvellous Lord Watson thinks the Commonwealth is:
"The great thing about the Commonwealth is that it links North and South, gives small nations a voice and is inter-governmental, not federal, in nature. A lot of diplomacy goes on behind the scenes and the Queen is instrumental in that.
Take South Africa under apartheid. This Queen has an instinct for racial equality, as did Queen Victoria, and her quiet influence was undoubtedly significant".
Historians and scholars have usually explained the end of apartheid in terms of the ANC reaching a deal with the main white parties in South Africa. This centred on Mandela accepting political, if not necessarily full economic power, on the basis of few, if any recriminations. That deal has endured, even if it has not brought significant economic change to many black Africans, nor has it prevented the sustained (and greatly under reported in the UK) murder of rural white South Africans.
It seems that history needs to be ripped up. We now need to add to the story the Queen's instinct for racial equality and its 'quiet influence'.......
Oh the poor "white south african" slavedrivng farmowners' murders are "greatly underreported" by what, the black-dominated british press?? FUCK OUTTA HERE. Fuck the queen and fuck you. Any more plans for holdays in apartheid "israel" since your honeymoon plans didn't work out by the way?? reactionary wanker.
I expect there will be a misspelled completely incoherent rant in your defense by your fan club of James Walsh and the completely insane pancho villa zionista whatever the fuck he calls himself.
Posted by: Rasta | June 07, 2012 at 05:50 PM
the above comment might seem unreasonable based just on the post above...after all there is nothing factually incorrect about it (apart from the subjective opinion of what is "under" reporting)..it's the *implication* that white farmowners (and most of the people who have been killed are large farmowners as far as I am aware, not random white hillbillies eking out a living from some little patch of land next to a shack) are some kind of persecuted victims.. FUCK EM is how I feel, they are getting exactly what they've been asking for and I think the guy who eliminated that turd TerreBlanche should get a medal instead of prison time. If that implication was not intended, then I guess I went overboard, but taken together with a long list of posts that dismiss/downplay the issue of race as worthy of consideration, along with Stott's near-obsessive focus on Islam in particular (NOT just religion in general) as some kind of monolithic and malevolent force, his promotion of the insane Ayaan Hirsi Ali (if I'm remembering her name correctly) as somehow "admirable".. a woman who lied on her asylum application, then joined an anti-immigration party that kept out people who had genuine asylum claims, and who has - incredibly, but truly - tried to make excuses for Anders fucking Breivik of all "people"...and especially his wishy washy somewhat sympathetic stance on the disgusting racist apartheid settler colony called "israel", to the point where he wanted to spend his honeymoon there, and I don't reckon people generally spend honeymoons taking part in non violent direct action that puts them at risk of death so I doubt he was going to join any of the weekly protests in Ni'lin, Bi'lin, Nabi Saleh or any other Palestinian village...put it all together and it spells "fuck you" to me. I tried to give all benefit of the doubt to Stott for a long time and even defended him against some of the more hysterical accusations of "internationalist" and suchlike, only because we have mutual friends and acquaintances who I respect, but no more, if he wants to claim he's subjected to a barrage of abuse from "the left" or whatever label he wants to put to whoever disagrees with him ("middle class" perhaps? lol), then fine, I am now officially part of that barrage of abuse. Not intending to harrass him or post on here again at all, just saying that one time for the record.
Posted by: Rasta | June 08, 2012 at 05:03 PM
Rasta has had more comebacks on this site than I had in the Big Apple. He huff and he puffs - then a few weeks later he gets his breath back and starts all over again.
Posted by: Frank Sinatra | June 08, 2012 at 10:54 PM
Still, Internationalist will be pleased that the Harry's Place link has finally bitten the dust...
Posted by: romanticanarchist | June 08, 2012 at 11:04 PM