Time future contained in time past

In 1975, when the future US President Obama was in his mid teens, Senator Frank Church's Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities published its reports.

"The Committee finds that the domestic activities of the intelligence community at times violated specific statutory prohibitions and infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens. The legal questions involved in intelligence programs were often not considered. On other occasions, they were intentionally disregarded in the belief that because the programs served the "national security" the law did not apply. While intelligence officers on occasion failed to disclose to their superiors programs which were illegal or of questionable legality, the Committee finds that the most serious breaches of duty were those of senior officials, who were responsible for controlling intelligence activities and generally failed to assure compliance with the law.

"Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.

...

"While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the "national security" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of the targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a "potential" for violence -- and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave "aid and comfort" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause.

"The imprecision of the targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black." Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist-"Hate Group."

"Furthermore, the actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the titles of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Communist Party members but also sponsors of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or deemed to be not sufficiently "anti-Communist". The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of anti-war demonstrations which were cosponsored by the SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included every Black Student Union and many other black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to the InterUniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from Antioch College ("vanguard of the New Left") to the New Mexico Free University and other "alternate" schools, and from underground newspapers to students' protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them."

Versions of history

Some who oppose every aspect of Mrs Thatcher's political legacy have said that, nonetheless, her passing causes them to lament that she was the last British political leader who said what she meant and had any sense of history.

However there are alternative historical narratives into which she might be seen to fit. Such ideas may seem improbably far-fetched and much too close to the delusions of conspiracy theory - except when one looks around at the sheer scale of the egregiousness of the economic and politcal status quo today one has to wonder.

One has to ask why, if the titans of the US banking world were surreptitiously implementing a political programme of not just American dominance at the expense of other nations but of permanently enriching the financial elite of their own country at the expense of the population at large, any one of them would publish even a short and little known book outlining his intentions; or how, in a wider context, apparently conflicting motives can be united in a single, cunning plan. Yet one then reflects how much of those intentions has actually come about, that even if the wheels are not oiled as efficiently as some observers suppose the charriot may nevertheless be headed in that direction, and that the few countries that have stood outside the dollar-dominated system of the issuance of money as debt number Libya, Iran and North Korea. 

It's probably best to get back in the garden - or the workshop - or talk to the cat.

No sweep could be grander

"Through the grand sweep of history, through all its twists and turns, there is one constant: the rock-solid alliance behind the US and the UK. The reason is simple. We stand together and we work together and we bleed together and we fall together in good times and bad, because when we feel our nations are secure, our people are more prosperous, the world is a safer and better and more just place."

Barack Obama, in the presence of David Cameron, 2012


"Good evening, I have recently been traveling round the world, on your behalf, and at your expense, visiting some of the chaps with whom I hope to be shaping your future.  I went first to Germany, and there I spoke with the German Foreign Minister, Herr. . .  Herr and there, and we exchanged many frank words in our respective languages, so precious little came of that in the way of understanding.  I would, however, emphasise, that the little that did come of it was indeed truly precious.  I then went on to America, and there I had talks with the young, vigorous President of that great country, and danced with his very lovely lady wife.  We talked of many things, including Great Britain’s position in the world as some kind of honest broker.  I agreed with him when he said that no nation could be more honest, and he agreed with me when I chaffed him and said that no nation could be broker. This type of genial, statesmanlike banter often went on late into the night...

"When I was abroad, I was very moved to receive letters from people in acute distress from all over the country. And one in particular from an old age pensioner in Fife is indelibly printed on my memory. Let me read it to you. It reads, ‘Dear Prime Minister, I am an old age pensioner in Fife, living on a fixed income of some two pounds, seven shillings a week. This is not enough. What do you and the Conservative Party propose to do about it.’ (tears up letter) Well, let me say straightaway, Mrs McFarlane, as one Scottish old age pensioner to another, be of good cheer. There are many people in this country today who are far worse off than yourself. And it is the policy of the Conservative Party to see that this position is maintained."

Harold Macmillan, as envisaged by Peter Cook, 1962

One feels that Cook-as-Macmillan might be writing the scripts of government spokespersons today.

The newspaper USA Today, in reporting on the Camerons' visit to Washington, apparently described Mrs Cameron as a 'fetching British aristocrat'. At least Peter Cook's Harold Macmillan was more accurate in his description of the then First Lady.

Macmillan took no offence at Peter Cook's sketch and himself attended one of the Beyond the Fringe performances in London. Cook, in his way, returned the compliment, claiming to hold Macmillan in affectionate regard: 'I was a great Macmillan Fan.' Richard Ingrams described Cook's political views as 'Conservative anarchist'.

The young, vigorous Peter Cook