What is an intellectual?

By that question, I don't mean is it someone who is clever, or well read, or who thinks and writes about things that others don't have time for ... No, I mean why are some people described as an 'intellectual', whilst others with similar achievements or attributes are not? Personally I don't know.

Marxists Liked To Interview Each Other ....

However the BBC seems to have definite template for those who should be described by them as being an 'intellectual' and those that aren't. From my minor research into this matter, it appears that they, along with other liberal media organisations have an identikit process to identify intellectuals.

Lessons Of History

Spain is in full-blown economic meltdown .... a 'depression' rather than a 'recession', with the overall unemployment rate at 23.6 per cent, which is comparable to the US/Europe in the depths of the Great Depression of the late 1920's and 1930's (with the youth unemployment rate over 50 per cent) .....

Communist and Nazis Street Fights - Berlin

This simply can’t carry on without risking the kind of social breakdown last seen in the 1930's (Street fighting and extreme political parties on the march .... Communists and Nazis), as the rise of the Far Right and Left in France, and perhaps more worryingly the Far Right  'Chrysi Avgi' ('Golden Dawn') in Greece illustrates.

Extremist Parties Rise In Economic Crisis

This is an era that modern Europe is starting to replicate in ever more faithful detail.

Greek Political Factions Fighting Over Economic Ruins

The 30's depression only ended after countries exited from the gold standard, which is the equivalent  of an exit from the Euro today, and the restoration of national currencies .... as an alternative to carrying on imposing ever-harsher austerity on countries that were already suffering Depression levels of  unemployment. However its the course of  imposing ever-harsher austerity that the European governments and ECB have reinforced.

It's hard not to conclude that rather than admit that the policies being followed are wrong, most European leaders seem determined to drive their economies and their societies into the ground  ..... you would think the Germans and the French leaders would be worried. Certainly many others fear that the whole world may pay the price.

New Bully Boy On The Block

"Such an act has grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged the Sino-American relations" ... these are the words of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in a written statement yesterday. And the cause of these aggressive sentiments? US spy planes flying over the one party, undemocratic, communist state? No. Err maybe the US have been caught spying? No. Oh well maybe the US has retaliated to  the spate of Chinese sponsored cyber attacks on Western businesses, Pro Tibetan sites, Pro democracy, or Government websites and computer systems, by attacking Chinese sites? Nope.

Obama And Dalai Lama ....

Well what was it that caused the Chinese dictatorship to use such intemperate language? President Obama had the nerve to hold a private meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama of a free Tibet.

The Tiger Is Still Red In Tooth And Claw

The Chinese have stopped playing nice since the Olympics and President Clinton's stupidly short sighted declaration that 'Human Rights' should not be allowed to interfere with relations with China.

This report from the BBC's correspondent details how far from moving slowly towards democracy as the liberal left like to suggest, China is in fact retrenching communist hegemony's over both law and the state.

The Chief Justice, is Mr Wang Shengjun is a party apparatchik who has never been to law school. The slow (and many hoped irreversible) court and legal reform reforms, that had established some concept of the rule of law and primacy of the state constitution, have been cancelled at a stroke, by Mr Shengjun telling China's judiciary to reject the concept of independent courts.

Instead they have been told that they should consider Communist Party interests first, then the people's interests, and finally after all else, constitutional law.

The effects on China have not necessarily been the supine acceptance of this situation that maybe the Chinese Communists expected, with a certain degree of mass resistance

• On the island of Xiamen protests to stop a chemical plant being built near their homes;
• In Shanghai it was the threat of a new railway line that caused the protests;
• In Guangdong, a protest against a planned waste incinerator.

And in each case it was the middle class, those newly rich, those who had apparently benefited from the party's rule, who were taking to the streets. With little or no faith in the courts, the protesters have little choice but to take direct action, if they dare.

Don't let anyone tell you that China is 'like us' (unless their a North Korean), because they are not.

The Colonel conquers North Korea

54 yrs after the ceasefire in the Korean War, the US finally found the secret of how to beat the Axis of evil. Send in the colonel, and I don't mean Oliver North …..I mean Colonel Sanders of course…. Yep it turns out that all the members of the Axis of Evil, such as North Korea, really wants, is a good old fashioned Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The BBC have a news story on the introduction of fast food to the North Koreans (mind you I had heard the fastest thing on two legs, was a chicken in North Korea). Now you might think that in a country where starvation is still common and real poverty 99% the norm, it would be difficult to obtain both regular meat, and customers, but you would be wrong.

Because, as is common in the other "communist paradises" that still exist (Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and China) there is an increasingly wealthy elite. Back in the USSR there were dollar shops (Beriozka) and a black market for the elite, and that hasn’t changed in these rump communist states, where some comrades are always more 'equal' than others.

The irony of this situation never seems to turn the head of any of the elite in these workers states, which shows how corrupt communism, a theory that forgot that it was dealing with humans, was from its very inception. In Pyongyang, these elite have created a market for luxury products (food, toiletries, basic items ….) and it’s into this niche market that a South Korean business man hopes to expand the fast food franchise.

So, as soon as the Whitehouse has evaluated the colonel’s conquest, then we can expect to see the colonels mate Ronnie parachuted in, and the two of them then taking the beaches in Cuba and Iran over the next few years.

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