'Nother Solent

Test post.

Send a letter to yourself.

You won't believe the error message I just got. (Hat tip to Boris Kupershmidt via the Libertarian Alliance Forum)

One death is a tragedy. Thirty million deaths aren't even a statistic.

Junius has a post recording his astonishment at the short shrift given to the millions who starved during Mao's Great Leap Forward in a magazine containing resources for pupils studying history. Arguably the biggest famine in history. Didn't rate a mention.

A few years ago that would have been par for the course. Not usually a fan of book burning, I might make an exception for the textbook full of smiling peasants from which I learned something calling itself geography in the 1970s. It's fair to say that GCSE history textbooks are usually better than that these days, as I know from having had a small role in producing some. I have to hand a copy of "History in Focus GCSE: Modern World History" by Ben Walsh, published by John Murray. (Just to be clear, this book was nothing to do with me.) It is a little skimpy in its treatment of the Great Leap Forward, but the thirty million are there, as is the fact that the Great Leap was a "disastrous failure" and not a natural one either.

Robert Conquest has done his work. Most British schoolchildren are no longer taught to think of the Soviet/Chinese communist system as just an alternative to our own, "valid in its own way", though I'd be willing to bet that 80% of them wouldn't know that Stalin killed more than Hitler did. My main beef against pretty well all the twentieth century history books I have seen is not one that Chris Bertram would share. They are all written by social democrats. Nice 'n' cuddly social democrats I am sure, but irredeemable statists. Mr Walsh's book is typical. Under "Achievements of the New Deal" it says:

• The New Deal stopped the Depression from getting worse. Sez you, bud. Nobel prize winning economists sez different.
• It helped farmers and farm owners to stay in their property with government help. And helped maintain their position vis à vis the landless blacks.
• It introduced better social security for American citizens. The better to give 'em an atomised and crime-ridden society.
• New Deal projects provided a strong foundation of schools, roads, dams etc. as a basis for future prosperity. Howdya get from the "took people's money from them" bit to the the "future prosperity" bit?
• The TVA revolutionised relationships between local and central government. Didn't it just.
• The New Deal gave hope and confidence to the American people at the worst time in their history Huh? What about the Civil War? and 'saved' American democracy. In order to save American democracy it was necessary to pack the Supreme Court...

(The comments in italics are mine, in case you hadn't worked that out.) "Revolutionised the relationships between local and central government" listed as an achievement. Bleah. Not that I wish to pick upon Mr Walsh's generally admirable book as worse in this respect than any other: they all worship the Tenessee Bleeding Valley Bleeding Authority. A little scepticism has finally crept in regarding the Aswan Bloody Dam and the Akosombo Damn Dam but the TVA still has the benefit of some grandfather clause permitting unalloyed admiration for this ancestor of all those ecology-blasting peasant-dispossessing schemes that have plagued the world since. (Just for the record, no, I have no desire to see the return of the dustbowls and nor do I think that all dams are a bad thing. I just don't think much of expropriation and nationalisation.)

To be fair there is also a list of "criticisms of the New Deal," though I can't help noting that the word "criticism" leaves it open whether the criticism is fair but the word "achievement" assumes that the thing is good and that's that.

Changing the subject, my ever-distractable eye was caught by a couple of lines (intended lightheartedly, I think) that Chris Bertram included in an e-mail alerting me to the post.

"Much as I'd rather be detecting pro-Tory or pro-libertarian biases in our school curriculum to moan about, I was so taken aback by the treatment of modern Chinese history in a magazine dedicated to the national curriculum for history that I had to blog about it..."

This illustrates why I think the adversarial system works well in our courts, and why the separation of powers in the US constitution also works well. The Bertram heart is naturally going to leap a little higher when and if he detects an opportunity to battle for (broadlywithlotsaqualificationsyaddayadda) his own side, just as the Solent heart beginneth to blossom and to bring forth fruit given the chance to nail a pinko. People work with a bit more zip when it is for some cause or organisation that they feel is their own, and an adversarial system works with that grain of human nature, always assuming that all sides are given a free run.

Yet there is a countervailing motive (illustrated by the post Chris actually had rather than the one he wanted) that is present in the hearts of many bloggers, and is something to be encouraged. We all want to be seen to be more than party hacks. In our purer and better moments we even want to be more than party hacks. I shall duly report any examples of pro-Tory or pro-libertarian bias in GCSE textbooks I see. Just don't hold your breath.

Now is the time...

The "famous American cartoonist Gary Trudeau has come to the aid of the French as they are faced with a campaign of denigration organised from America," reports Le Monde. Trudeau is going to put out Doonesbury in French without subtitles for a while. Well, if Mel Gibson is going to do the Passion in Aramaic, why not? There is always room for a new niche market. Why, if you lose and alienate enough of your once-loyal audience you might even qualify for a subsidy. Hey, it worked for the French film industry.

Nothing about the idea of running an American cartoon in the French language outrages me. I can plough my way through Mr Trudeau's undemanding text, and the notion would still amuse even if I couldn't. However if you are seeking something to finally motivate you to dig out that Lingaphone set from the back of the cupboard, look elsewhere. Last Sunday's cartoon is embarrassing. The characters look outside the cartoon strip and harangue the reader, for one thing, in the manner of Henry the Home Safety Hedgehog using the last frame to say "and as I found out, kids: it's dangerous to play with matches!" But that isn't the worst thing about it. The absolute Yeuch-factor-Triple-A moment occurs when Trudeau assumes that no one would have dreamed of being harsh to the French if they had known it would insult him. M. Trudeau, êtes-vous donc si égoïste que vous ne reconaissez même pas que le question en discussion n'est pas votre nom?

And if terrorists had blown up the Eiffel Tower I don't think that an American book saying that it never happened would have made the US bestseller lists.

"The US is a police state,"

says a senior German diplomat. One Jurgen Chrobog told his colleagues at the annual meeting of German ambassadors that the US was restricting more and more of its civil liberties. True, but - "thank you for your valuable feedback, Mr Pot."

Meanwhile the German Defence minister, Peter Struck says,

“It’s not for a German Defence Minister to show regret or guilt feelings towards his American counterpart. We have an equal relationship.”

An equal relationship means a relationship where the parties have equal status, not equal moral status. If one party has behaved badly he or she should show regret and feel guilt.

Never mind the news,

I have an important question. What is the polite way to eat orange segments? The efficient way is to bite down on about half the segment, peel and all, and then pull it out through clenched teeth, stripped clean. Yummy, but I am not under the impression that this is an elegant procedure.

Is Cuba the land where communism works?

This editorial in the Hindustan Times doesn't think so. Three generations of Indians have taken an understandable pleasure in thumbing their noses at their former colonizers by displaying ostentatious friendliness towards Communist regimes, but times are changing.

And while I'm here

: My comment on the success of the far-right British National Party in the recent local elections: racial politics is an ugly game, and one that everybody loses in the end. But when it's the only game in town everyone will play it, and that includes the whites.

Shh. I shouldn't be here.

I know I'm meant to be doing other things, but I cannot resist mentioning that Biased BBC is zipping along at the moment, gas in her tank, wind in her sails and mix in her metaphor. Great posts from Kerry Butram, Toby Blyth, Patrick Crozier and a little snuck-in one from me.