Shoot Johann Hari

i'm just upset it's taken me 2 months to learn of it - although i tend not to make a habit of reading the reactionary shite coming out of hari

I get my fair share of deaththreats - there is even a charming website called Shoot Johann Hari

Well in fact it was the entire group of us he threatened to have arrested, or removed. We (Sussex action for Peace - Brighton's Stop the War group) were protesting outside the surgery of everyone's favourite junior defence minister in early 2005 when he sent out one of his staff (her name escapes me) to warn us that we were being too noisy and that anyone who wasn't a constituent with an appointment should leave.

Incidentally, following this protest, which was fairly visible, within a couple of days Caplin had announced he wouldn't be standing in the next election, a slightly odd move for a junior minister, and of course nothing to do with our protests.

This is wonderful. Apparently Cadbury's is going to remove the wrappers from and bury 250 tons of chocolate. It's not often that you read something even vaguely worthwhile in the Daily Mail, but apparently they are refusing to disclose where they are burying it in case children try to find it.

Rotten spoilsports! I'd also like to find that chocolate, equivalent apparently to 55 male elephants (which would be a slightly less mouth-watering prospect), and hope that this country now embarks upon the largest treasure hunt ever seen.

This made me particularly angry. It's the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, an event that should be commemorated by workers the world over as the first occassion on which there was a real movement towards something better than the state capitalist USSR. Indeed, on October 23rd of this year, there will doubtless be many events organised by socialists to mark this anniversary. But in the meantime, we would be best advised to challenge Bush's vile claims that 'We have learned from your example and we resolve that when people stand up for their freedom America will stand with them.'

What was America actually doing in 1956? It is true that President Eisenhower said 'I feel with the Hungarian people'. Secretary of State J F Dulles promised 'To all those suffering under communist slavery, let us say you can count on us', suggesting that the US would aid those involved in the uprising. But was any aid forthcoming? No, America stood back and watched as Kruschev's tanks crushed the revolution. The result - 33 more years of occupation, with no chinks even allowed to appear in Russia's armour until Solidarnosc.

What was America doing in 1956? It is true that it played a role in ending the Suez crisis, although that was more a case of it defending its imperialism over those of Britain, Israel and France. At the same time, it was blocking Vietnam's national elections, agreed in the Geneva Peace Accords of 1954, which would have reunified the country. What was the US doing? It was building and aiding counter-revolutionary forces in Vietnam, knowing that the Vietnamese Communist Party would be the dominant political force in a unified Vietnam. Within a year, the American-backed Government of the Republic of Vietnam was rounding up and jailing revolutionaries in South Vietnam.

So we can see America's commitment to 'people standing up for their freedom' and 'fighting for democracy'. Then, as now, the imperialists dominated, and that is why anyone who remembers Hungary, October 1956, should be disgusted by Bush's visit to mark it - more than anything else he is dancing on the graves of those who were killed following the uprising.

It's Craig Murray in a muumuu!! No fat guy hat though.

Slightly belated I know, but it is fantastic that Ken Loach has been recognised for his superb contribution to political cinema in being awarded the Palme d'Or Prize at Cannes for his new film 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley'.

The film is set around the events leading up to the Irish Civil War. I cannot comment on the film itself - it has not yet been released, but if you can jusge it by its enemies, then Harry MacAdam wrote in the Sun that it is 'A brutally anti-British film... designed to drag the reputation of our nation through the mud. It portrays British soldiers as trigger happy mercenaries hooked on torture, burning cottages for kicks, and using pliers to rip out the toenails of innocent Irish victims.'

Rightly, comparisons have been drawn between the subject matter of the new film, and events in present day Iraq, from where we receive almost daily reports of new evidence of massacres and cover-ups by occupying forces. Living at this time, any film that sheds light on the realities of life under occupation should be welcomed. This has cut both ways, with loyalists and warmongers infuriated by the new film, the Daily Mail's Ruth Dudley Edwards writing of Loach that 'His purpose is to encourage direct comparisons between the Ireland of 1920 and present day Iraq. This requires the portrayal of the British as sadists and the Irish as romantic, idealistic resistance fighters. It is no surprise that Loach supports George Galloway’s Respect party.' Loach has welcomed the comparisons, remarking upon accepting the award that 'Maybe if we start telling the truth about the past, we can start telling the truth about the present.'

This is the second time Ken Loach has been awarded at Cannes. He previously won the jury prize for his film 'Hidden Agenda' about the shoot-to-kill policy employed by the British in Northern Ireland (another topic that remains deeply relevant in light of tactics currently employed by the British state).

Ken will be speaking at the Marxism 2006 event in London next month where he will be introducing another of his masterpieces, 'Land and Freedom', an account of the Spanish Civil War that, like Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia', also makes a mockery of the lies that the tankies were putting out in the Daily Worker at the time. Other speakers at Marxism 2006 include Gillo Pontecorvo (director of the Battle of Algiers), George Galloway, Bernadete Devlin, Ragged Trousered Pessimist, Tariq Ali, Roland Denis (a former minister in the Chavez government) and Tony Benn. A full timetable and tickets are available by following the link above.

Why not try exhuming the dead?

Why not try soup?

Why not try onanism?

Why not try swimming on the land?

Why not try standing at an unusual angle?

Why not try having sex with a world leader and then attempting to topple him with revelations about your relationship?

Why not try standing in the middle of a roundabout swearing at the cars as they pass?

Why not try working for the Daily Star, interviewing people and then just changing everything they said, to make them sound like idiots?

Why not try surrounding your house with POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS tape and watching through the curtains while your neighbours look uneasy and distressed?

Why not try beating around the bush and other low level vegetatian?

Why not try eating rye bread in a wry fashion?

Why not try making up your own swear words like twart, marber and bed bucket?

Why not try ringing directory enquiries and asking for the number of directory enquiries?

Why not try answering the questions in the Guardian’s Notes and Queries section with deliberately wrong answers?

Why not try setting fire to some fire?

Why not try spitting on the grave of Enoch Powell?

Why not try watching Pugwall's Summer every time it's on, even though there are never any new ones?

Why not try selling salt as smelling salt and telling anyone who complains that their nose must be malfunctioning?

Why not try spitting pips into a bin?

Why not try spitting bins into a pip?

Why not try stealing your things from work?

Why not try doing a stand-up comedy routine about stealing things from work?

Why not try doing a stand-up routine about stealing things from work that is itself stolen from the King Missile Song about stealing stuff from work?

Why not try sitting on the fence, literally?

Why not try standing near the fence, and then think about hopping up to sit on it, but then deciding you might scuff your trousers?

Why not try sucking on a Jolly Rancher?

Why not try wearing glasses and smoking a pipe and hoping that the blokes in the pub will nick-name you "The Professor"?

Why not try standing in the street all day holding a sign saying "Golf Sale, This Way"?

Why not try eating one of those yellow detergent cakes out of a pub urinal?

Why not try going back in time to 1912 and shouting "You're all going to die!" at people boarding the Titanic?

Why not try licking a cat's teat?

Why not try teating a cat's lick?

Why not try smashing the system from within and then running out of it just as it collapses killing everyone inside?

I encountered Celia Barlow, scary looking MP for Hove and self-styled angriest woman alive on the weekend prior to the 2005 General Election, while campaigning for Respect in the constituency. A replacement for Ivor Caplin, a defence minister who was forced to step down from being Hove MP after a large stop the war campaign (See Labour MP's who have threatened to have me arrested: Number 3 - Ivor Caplin), she had been very coy about her own position on the war. However she had stated to a local newspaper that she supported the occupation in claiming: 'Real progress has been made in Iraq and many ordinary people there rely on us for security and assistance so let us support the Iraqi people and our troops'.

Seeing her further up the same street where we were campaigning, it seemed only proper to challenge her over the megaphone to defend her position which to us left her with blood on her hands. She didn't seem too pleased with this move, charging up to the stall and shouting 'That is an utter lie! I could have you arrested for that!'

Quite why she thought her position on the war was any kind of secret, having stated it in the local paper is unclear. Since then she has gone on to get involved with the repulsively pro-war 'Labour Frinds of Iraq'. What is certain is that many people out shopping that day ould have been put off voting for her.

(I am aware that this series seems to revolve around me and some sort of loudspeaker sytem. This will change, I promise).