Pacifism & the left

Manifest publishing of Norway has directed me to these handy little charts from socialistworker.org. Our priorities - that's us as in the species - are just all wrong. We are quite literally spending more money on killing each other than any other thing.

I think the left needs to get back in touch with their pacifist roots. Obviously, we should be sensible about security and not bla bla the errors of Chamberlain bla bla bla appeasement bla bla useful idiots bla bla. I'll be the first to tell you that peace is not just the absence of war. But seriously: why don't we get back to moving towards these long-term goals: the complete elimination of organised violence and a greatly reduced proportion of standing armies? I can't think of a single reason not to. But here are 200 million good reasons.

and now, vice president Cheney on why the invasion of Iraq was a mistake

Oh, that was in 1994? I'm sorry. My bad.

As a follow-up to the Clinton piece below, here's an enormous profile of Clinton in the New Yorker.

(oh, and here's a completely nauseating, beatifying puff-piece on Clinton written by Alistair Campbell. It turns out that Campbell is not just good at sexing up dossiers that leads one to go to war under false pretenses, he can also sex up the confoundingly, neither-nor career of a president. Anyone who says that any president or national leader is right in everything that they do is just plain wrong, and therefore not your friend. That having been said, I long for the sunnier days of the Clinton presidency.)

Completely unrelated: here is an article I found on an album of music recorded during tuning and between concerts. The cacophonic effect of the orchestra rehearsing separately in the same room is like listening to a flock of birds. Quite beautiful. Here's a sample track where the woodwinds go crazy. Listen for quite atonal readings of "Oh Suzanna" and "Deilig er jorden" (English title?). More clips in the NY Times article. (via Suttonhoo)