AFTER THE JULY CRISES: The Guns and Bombs of August 2014.
By Michael Faulkner - 08.10.14
At the end of July 2014 we are just one week short of the centenary of Britain’s declaration of war on Germany. Rising tensions in Europe, from the assassination in Sarajevo of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the 28th June1914, to the British declaration of war on the 4th of August, led to the inexorable drive to war during...
Read MoreBy Michael Faulkner – July 13, 2014
It is now more than eleven years since the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the USA and Britain. Because those who planned and prosecuted that invasion, and those who supported them, continue to defend what they did with contorted and specious arguments, it is worth recalling the attempted justifications for it that were made at the time.
Former prime minister Tony Blair who has escaped prosecution as a war criminal, astonishingly still emerges from time to time, apparently oblivious to the widespread contempt in which he is ...
Read MoreBy Michael Faulkner - 06.08.14
The rise in Europe of parties of the xenophobic right, with which this column was concerned last month, has prompted some discussion in sections of the media about the use of the term “Fascism” to describe some of them. The readers’ editor of The Guardian writes, in a piece on how to describe the far right in modern Europe, that “fascist is a word that should be used with pin-point accuracy if the voters throughout Europe are to retain focus in the gloop of far-right rhetoric.” This is sensible...
Read MoreBy Michael Faulkner - 05.11.14
Just a few weeks away from the elections to the European parliament, the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) is expected to poll up to 30% of the votes cast in Britain. If this prediction is accurate it would make the anti-EU, anti-immigration party more popular than any other far right party in Europe. In six other EU member counties such parties are likely to poll more than 20% and in seven others between 4.4% and 18%. Such predictions need to be treated with some caution as turnout in EU elections has steadily declined over the years, falling from an average...
Read MoreBy Michael Faulkner - 04.13.14
The first difficulty encountered when trying to cut through the tangled mass of misinformation, omission and downright lies that has been presented as serious reporting about Ukraine, Russia, and Crimea in most of the British media, is to know where to begin. Anyone interested in getting at the truth should have learned long ago not to expect any serious historical perspective or any interest in balance or consistency in the pronouncements of leading politicians. Dissembling and peddling propaganda is...
Read MoreBy Michael Faulkner - 03.09.14
Will the centenary of the outbreak of “The Great War” in 1914 turn out to be more than the propagandists of Britain’s heritage industry intended it to be? The indications so far are that we are in for a sentimental, ahistorical nostalgia-fest intended to promote the theme of a “just war” to defend democracy against tyranny, a war which, in spite of its unprecedented slaughter, was not fought in vain. Those who “gave their lives” died in a noble cause. As this commemoration is due to go on for four years there will be opportunities for dissenting voices such as this one, albeit with little access to the mainstream media, to stand against the conformist tide. However much disagreement there is about the First World War- its causes, nature and consequences - one thing is beyond dispute: it was not, as the victors opined in 1918, “the war to end wars”.
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