Michael Goldfarb's Notebook:

Left, right, left, right — halt!!! one, two

LONDON —  Oh Gawd!!!! Here we go again. In Germany, Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats win a handsome victory while the Social Democratic Party slumps to its worst defeat since the war. Here in Britain we are just waiting until next spring when the David Cameron-led Conservative Party will smash Labour (if opinion polls are to be believed and as a voting member of the British public I say, believe them).

And now come the stories about the rise of the Right, the collapse of the Left!!

Stop it.  Stop it right now, all editors, reporters, and think-tank types with good degrees from fancy private colleges opining in quarterly journals few people read.  Stop writing this tripe right now!!!

There is no left and there is no right any more in Europe, at least not by the historic definitions of those terms.  There is only a center ground and all politicians with a hope of electoral success occupy it.

Europe's left — with its historic ties to statist socialism is dead, dead, dead.  It was executed 30 years ago by Francois Mitterand when he began his three terms as president of France and given the coup de grace 15 years ago by Tony Blair when he got his Labour Party to re-write its constitution eliminating clause 4, which dedicated Labour to having the government own the means of production. Blair's socialism went down very well with the socialites in formerly Conservative voting areas of west London and the Home Counties.  It managed to get Labour elected three consecutive times despite the Iraq fiasco.

The same process has been going on in right wing parties, as well.  Do you think Britain's Conservatives bear any resemblance to the party Margaret Thatcher led? Its leader David Cameron, Britain's likely next prime minister, is on record as saying he won't touch the National Health Service — arguably the British "left's" greatest achievement and he is completely committed to Green causes, even if it means passing regulations that constrain business.  Do you honestly think Angela Merkel is going to do to Germany's unions what Thatcher did to Britain's now that she heads a "right-wing" government? This is the woman who OK'ed the world's first "cash for clunkers" program, the ultimate state intervention into the workings of the market place. Because of that, Germany's experience with the recession has been less bloody than a lot of other places.  Same can be said of France where the "Right" has been ascendant for several years ... Has Monsieur Sarkozy dismantled the more "leftish" elements of the French state ... non.

Left and right have meaning only where radical politics have real purchase in a society.  In Europe that is only at the fringe so there is no need to apply those terms in Europe. The U.S. is different. The fringe has taken over a mainstream political party turning the Republicans into the only party in the civilized world that is truly radical. So you can use the appelation "right-wing" when discussing U.S. politics.  But the Republicans are not counter-balanced by a radical party of the left.  The only people who see radicalism in the Democrats are the propagandizers of the "right." Impartial observers have yet to detect it. Therefore America has a "right-wing" but no "left-wing."

So I reiterate my call to colleagues in journalism: stop using the terms "left" and "right" in that stale, hackneyed way (except when talking about the party of Jim DeMint).  And readers ... skip to the next article if you see those terms being used in your local paper.

So many thoughts, so little time

LONDON — Like a wedding, the G20 summit has taken months to prepare and it will all be over too quickly. There's a hardly enough time to talk to everyone, to say all the things you want to say. But blogging means I can try!!

1. Anti-capitalist protesters grabbed a few overnight headlines in the British papers. I have been puzzled for years as to why protesters turn up at these events. I spent several hours "kettled" by British police with a bunch of anti-capitalists outside the Bank of England when the G20 met in London in April. It was a nostalgic occasion (I was tear gassed on two continents during my Vitenam-era youth). Anyway the kids were lovely people, a few roughnecks, but by and large retro-hippies singing the old songs, engaged in performance to "demonstrate their concern." Abused by police they behaved themselves.

I came away asking myself why do they bother? Don't they understand the pecking order of the world yet? Wall Street (in the widest sense of the word) is the boss of the politicians, not the other way round. Just look at how things have unfolded in the last 24 months. We've mortgaged our future to tax hikes and public service cuts so that the bankers/financiers/speculators can continue to have fun. A BBC item this morning claimed there are five lobbyists from the banking industry for every member of Congress ... if true, that is further proof of my point.

Anyway wouldn't it make much more sense for the protesters to make their concerns known to the people who are really in charge? Why not summon a hundred thousand people via web and cell phone to block the entrance to Goldman Sachs HQ on the day the board is meeting to decide on how they are divvying up the bonus pool? That would have genuine impact, not rapelling down a bridge over the Ohio River.

2. The newspapers here led their G20 coverage on President Obama's announcement that the G20 would replace the G8 as the primary international body monitoring global economic questions. They interpret this move as giving a seat at the head table to India and China. China, of course, is particularly important. The unasked question at the summit is whether China will change its economic policy as it accepts this new responsibility. Specifically, what will it do about the severe undervaluing of its currency? Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist, has an excellent article about this here. The one thing Emmott doesn't touch on is the wages of Chinese workers. If the way is being cleared for China to play its part in international organizations isn't it time for the People's Republic to meet the same standards of safety and minimum wages that the U.S. and other countries meet?

3 We've had a run of absolutely lovely weather in London. There hasn't been a September like it since 2001. Odd how cloudless, beautiful blue skies in September now inspire a gnawing feeling of impending disaster. I wonder if the G20 leaders feel that ... probably not ...
Anyway last night I was out and about in London. The pubs were overflowing on to the sidewalks with relaxed, well-dressed people. Along Bond street, London's most expensive shopping street, there were plenty of people with bags from top stores filled with stuff. Construction has begun on the new Louis Vuitton emporium of luxe.

It's London Fashion Week and the verdict is the buzz is back. Even Giorgio Armani showed a collection here. Lots of flesh on display which the allegedly left-wing Guardian interprets as maestro Armani telling us all (they are very fond of the inclusive first person plural these fashion writers) to hit the gym because we are going to need ripped arms and well-defined knees if we are going to wear these clothes convincingly. This may not be of interest to you but the next item should be: real estate agents are reporting a complete bounce back in London's high-end property market. The Times reports that "bankers are putting their heads above the parapet once more." Goldman Sachs bonus babies are touring the city (I thought they had no time to do anything but work 18 hour days, seven days a week and that's why they deserved their seven-figure pay outs). Anyway the GS'ers are looking for million pound town houses to pay cash for with their bonuses.

You do wonder about the world sometime. What can the G20 leaders do to show that things must change because we've blown all the money getting out of this last crash and for the next one — which may be on us soon if they don't put some serious new rules in place — there isn't a penny left to bail them out?

Heretics or purveyors of common sense?

LONDON — Two Lords a leaping have the Banker/Speculator/Financier community hopping mad here in the financial services capital of the world.

Lord Turner, head of the Financial Services Agency, Britain's statutory watchdog over the industry, stirred the pot a few weeks ago when he called for tighter regulations — and taxation — of banking activities that were "socially useless." He meant those games played on Wall Street and in London's financial district the City that to an outsider look very much like casino or pass the parcel ... with the loser being whoever is holding the credit default swap when it goes boom!!! (Bye-Bye Lehman Bros.)

Anyway, two nights ago he was at it again. Addressing a formal banquet of hundreds of banking chiefs he told them that bonus payments were "a legitimate matter of social interest, rather than an entirely private matter." Boos and catcalls ricocheted around the banquet hall. Turner told one particularly noisy fellow to leave and go back out on the street if he wanted to engage in that kind of barracking.

In a separate but seemingly coordinated attack, a different lord, Lord Myners, picked up the stirring spoon, telling a different group of elite money-men that all major companies should be compelled to reveal the names of their 20 top paid employees along with precise figures about how much they earn. He also batted away one of the financiers favorite self-justifications for the seven-figure bonus: they are no different than professional athletes. They ask, if soccer players can earn 10 million a year why shouldn't I? Myners answer in a speech last week was that soccer players have a unique talent. They don't.

A word about British Lords. There are two kinds. Those who inherit their titles (and usually a great big slice of the countryside with a grand house on it) and working lords appointed by the political parties. Turner and Myners belong to the latter group and both were appointed by the Labour government. This does not make them rabid socialists. Adair Turner's C.V. includes a long stint at consultants McKinsey & Co. and he was vice-chairman of Merrill-Lynch in Europe. Paul Myners has a similar executive background as a pension fund manager and chairman of legendary British retailer Marks and Spencer. What the two have in common is a view toward capitalism with a human face.

The timing of their speeches is not coincidental. They were made with an eye on Pittsburgh. What the two are hoping to make clear is that while the G20 is trying to reorganize the global financial system, the banks that survived the crash are doing more than all right. Trading conditions are lovely — there is less competition — and profits are fat again ... but the reasons trading conditions are sweet for the survivors is that trillions of dollars of public money from all around the world went into shoring up the system. That gives taxpayers no matter where they live a special interest ... and a right to have a say in how profits are spent. Are they reinvested in productive activities? Oor are they shunted into offshore bank accounts of the speculators who brought the system down in the first place?

That is the critical question as the G20 leaders sit down to talk. Turner and Myners hope the leaders listen to the word of the Lords.

On Iraq: A past question revived

The New York Times and Washington Post both lead today with stories about Blackwater, the private military contractor, being contracted in 2004 by the CIA to run an assassination program against Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. 

The story did not surprise me but it revived a question in my mind that neither article addresses. 

On March 31, 2004 four Blackwater operatives were ambushed at high noon in downtown Fallujah. Their mutilated, charred bodies were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.  Within days, at explicit White House orders, the U.S. Marines were sent into town to find their murderers. 

The Marine Corps' senior officer in Iraq at the time has not been shy about expressing his distress at the mission (see Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City). Fallujah was flattened, civilian casualties were heavy, and the Sunni part of the long-simmering insurgency exploded all over Anbar province. 

What the unfortunate Blackwater guys were doing there has never been explained. 

I was in Iraqi Kurdistan at the time and it seemed bizarre to my Iraqi friends and myself that the men should be on their own in that part of Fallujah in broad daylight. The immediate massive response — just as the U.S. was planning to use military force against the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — seemed very bad timing.

If they were part of the assassination program shouldn't we be told?  The Sunni insurgency would have happened anyway, but would it have been as massive, at the cost of hundreds of American lives, if the four mercenaries not been avenged with such savagery?

This is a critical question that reflects on the use of private military contractors, like Blackwater, now rebranded as Xe, so controversial were its actions in Iraq.

If you read this, pass it along ... preferably to a senior editor at the Times or the Post. We need more reporting to get to the bottom of  this. Or better yet, call CIA director Leon Panetta's office and ask for full disclosure of all the facts in this case.

Last surviving WWI veteran is buried

LONDON — They laid Harry Patch to rest today and with him the last living link to what is still called in this country The Great War. His funeral was held in Wells Cathedral down in Somerset, an honor that would have been unimaginable when he was born 111 years ago.

Patch, who died 10 days ago, served as a corporal machine gunner in the trenches in France for a mere four months in 1917 before being severely wounded and sent home. He was, as he knew, luckier than most of his comrades. But in some ways not so fortunate. Patch kept his experiences bottled up inside him until he reached his 100th birthday. It was only after that he began to speak out loud about what he had seen and what he did in that war that did not end all wars.

Having seen in his first charge over the top at the Battle of Paschendaele (Ypres to Americans) what happens when military ordnance intersects with the human body, he decided to do what he could to not kill another human being. The 100-year-old man confessed to always aiming his machine gun below the knee of the Germans staggering through no man's land toward his position. At Paschendaele, about five miles of ground were taken at a cost of half a million Allied casulaties and about 350,000 German losses. His survival of that carnage gave him unimpeachable moral authority and he became perhaps the single most believable spokesman against war on the planet.

Britain's new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has memorialized his life with a great poem.  It is well worth taking a moment to read it and reflect.   

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