I remember a Romanian telling me, just before the downfall of the Ceausescus, that it would take three generations at least to remove the taint of the communist system from the souls of Romanians; it will take at least as long to remove managerialism from the souls of the British, though it has been with us for so comparatively short a period.

— Theodore Dalrymple

The story is told well enough here.  My thanks to Fred and Paul for the link.

To add to that, readers who are interested in knowing a little more of van Gogh and why he died, please read the comment by Braveheart in the thread of my initial post on the killing.  You will find there a translation of van Gogh’s last press article.  My thanks to Braveheart for that.

As chance would have it I stumbled across AMERICA’S SECRET WAR: INSIDE THE HIDDEN WORLDWIDE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND ITS ENEMIES by George Friedman today. Highly recommended.

The “Norman Goldman” review on the Amazon site provides an accurate summary of the book.

Friedman runs STRATFOR, billed as the largest private intelligence company, not surprisingly, Friedman analyses the war from the point of view of a hard headed strategist. At one point in his concluding chapter, he discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the arrayed Jihadist and American forces that may shock some readers in it’s candour.

He points out that American forces are well armed and equipped and capable of enduring hardship. He points to the long history of foreign powers underestimating the fighting prowess of American troops (Valley Forge, Corregidor, Khe Sanh..) and the war fighting ‘stomach’ of the American people.

“The weakness of the U.S. is not our soldiers, or their numbers, but the vast distance that separates American leaders from those who fight. From government officials to media moguls… few members of the leadership class have children who are at war. To them, the soldiers are alien, people they have never met and don’t understand… A ruling class that sends the children of others to fight, but not their own, cannot sustain it’s power for very long.”

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Mr Blair’s thinking operates on three levels: what is best for the British government, what is best for the Labour party and what is best for him personally.

Ewan MacAskill, Diplomatic Editor, The Guardian

Theo van Gogh, “enfant terrible” of Dutch cinema, was shot and stabbed to death in full public view in an Amsterdam street today.  The killing, in broad daylight by a man on a motorcycle, bore all the hallmarks of an assassination.  Dutch police have arrested a 26-year old man thought to be of Moroccan descent.

Van Gogh, 47, was the director of the hugely controversial film, Submission.  The writer, Somalian-born Hirsi Ali was a Muslim apostate who determined to reveal to Western audiences the nature of a Muslim woman’s married life.  Inevitably, she attracted a wave of opposition from among Holland’s one million Muslims.  She is now a Dutch MP.

A bitter and ironic twist to the the murder today is that van Gogh was working on a film of the equally shocking political assasination of anti-immigrationist and rising star of the right, Pym Fortuyn.

Having been painted by the mainstream, liberal media as an extremist and racist Fortuyn received innumerable threats to his life.  Still he neither requested armed protection nor was it offered.  The irony was that, actually, Fortuyn was an economic Thatcherite and social libertarian who, like van Gogh, was deeply troubled by the Islamification of Dutch society and by racial change in general.  An animal rights activist and environmentalist, Volkert van der Graaf, shot Fortuyn dead on 5th May, 2002.

There are many Dutch who believe that, had he lived, he would have been Prime Minister today.  Now another champion of the Dutch people’s right to their homeland is gone.

One bright point of hope at last in the relentless march of statism and culture war: our civil servants are a weak and sickly bunch.  Or possibly they are just lead-swingers, depending on your credulity.  Or the lack of it.

A report published by the Cabinet Office has found that the average civil servant nabs two weeks of sickies a year.  The trend is rising.  In 2000 the average was 9.3 for women, 8.0 for men.  In 2001, it was 10.4 days for women, 8.5 for men.  Men are currently stuck on 8.5 days but the girlies have raced on to 11.3.  I haven’t found figures for 2002.  But in that year the three sickest government departments, apparently, were Transportation, Family & Community Services and, naturally, Health & Wellbeing.

The private sector is another story.  The outdoor life certainly seems one of rude health.  The check-shirted, blue-jeaned tough guys of oil and mining only succumb on 3.3 days a year.  Builders, who in my experience believe the common cold to be a rumour, take 4.2 days.

The lash of low rates of pay, presumably, forces expiring hotel and leisure staff to work – except on 4.6 days a year.  Across the board, the private sector average is about 30% below the public sector.  I can’t help thinking, though, that the Human Resources types who monitor these things have never ventured onto an average British dairy farm or they would find the differential quite incalculable because dairy farmers do actually have to be buried – and, if that won’t do it, cremated - before they will stop work.

It comes as no surprise to learn that ministers have set a target – yet another – of a 30% reduction from the 1998 sick-leave total.  They have decided in typical, arbitrary fashion that bureaucracy is, in fact, capable of emulating capitalism.  I suppose if in the face of all the known facts you cannot bring yourself to believe in differing human potentials and in the ineffably superior efficiency and work ethic of free enterprise you will never, never learn.

If I was Gordon Brown I wouldn’t bother about investigating all this.  If we can’t sack the lot of these people and slash our taxes the safest and best place for them is their sickbeds … or the pub … or the bingo hall … or the pier at Margate.  I suppose it might rain.

Americans who don’t realize how traditional complexities often linger in England in spite of the left/liberal tendency of British politics are surprised by the persistence of faith schools there. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, though, that the secular and multicultural commitments of the British state have now made faith schools an issue, or that the issue has its practical complexities that reflect something more general than peculiar English conditions.

The practical problem is that secular multicultural education is always bad, at least on any large scale, because schools of that kind can’t have educational goals that are more sustaining than pliability on the one hand and the effective pursuit of self-interest on the other. If the moral world consists solely of the conflicting purposes of various people, then you either teach children to do what they’re told or you teach them to get what they want. The results of such an outlook when applied to education are fundamental aimlessness, aggression, manipulation, boredom, stupidity, and general bad conduct. Everybody hates everybody, and nobody learns anything.

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That’s blog-life.  No sooner have I made my, of course, lengthy and laboured point than some guy goes and says it all so much more precisely.  And concisely.  That’s academics all over!

Thanks Kevin.