Rupert's Read

In a brave and important move that has been as yet barely acknowledged in the press in this country, the Libyan Transitional National Council last week shut the Syrian embassy in Tripoli down, and recognised the Syrian National Council (which has recently unified virtually all the non-violent anti-Assad Syrian Opposition behind its banner) as the government-in-waiting of Syria.* This is an exciting development, an intelligent move. It ought to be copied by Britain. For one of the things that the Syrian protesters now most want (they mostly DON'T want foreign military intervention) is precisely this: serious diplomatic sanctions against Syria, to delegitimise the Assad regime in the eyes of the world. We should support the Syrian democracy-protesters; we can easily give them what they want. Let's close the Syrian embassy in Britain (unless it is prepared to declare independence from its capital, as some Libyan embassies did during the uprising there), and ...

This scientific report by Professor Chris Busby which has just come out shows by hair sample analysis that enriched uranium weapons were used in the attack on Fallujah, where birth defect and cancer rates are rocketing:   http://www.conflictandhealth.com/content/5/1/15/abstract   In this article, Busby talks about the attempts to stop his report being finished, and to stop it being published:   http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=21049   DU weapons are wrong, as I've argued previously here and on Liberal Conspiracy. They should not be used on humanitarian missions such as in Libya, because they are anti-human and inhumane.              

Why I won't be attending the launch-conference for Compass's 'Plan B' event, this weekend.   I got an invite from Gavin Hayes and Neal Lawson to attend the launch-Conference this Saturday (tomorrow) for Compass's 'Plan B'. Now, I'm a big fan of Compass. It has been for some time the only real sign of life in Labour. Its full opening up to members of other Parties earlier this year was a genuinely exciting moment in British politics, a key moment in the possible realignment of the Left: http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2011/03/compass-greens-join-up.html . I am one of the co-ordinators of the effort to get together Greens who are in Compass, to ensure that there are lots of us and that we think together within the Green Party: http://www.facebook.com/notes/rupert-read/announcing-compass-greens/10150290565828687 . I have been since its beginning a member of Compass's 'Sustainability Panel', which seeks to green-validate Com...

My newest on OPEN DEMOCRACY: http://www.opendemocracy.net/rupert-read/libya-has-opened-to-way-to-diplomatic-sanctions-against-syria

Debating the future of the NHS with Simon Wright outside his office, Friday 21st Oct. The Green Party has been actively campaigning across the country in order to keep the NHS public. The party is concerned about plans to remove from the Secretary of State for Health the obligation to ensure that health services are provided across the country and to place the responsibility on GPs to buy health care services for the NHS, often from private companies. The purpose of this protest, organised by the Norwich branch of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign, is to highlight the support that local Conservative and LibDem MPs, including Simon Wright, have given to the plans and to call on them to reconsider. Mr Wright recently voted for the reforms in a crucial Commons vote. The proposals are currently being considered by the House of Lords.

I have long been an active supporter of Medialens ( http://www.medialens.org/ ). Like many others, I have supported them with money, time, tips, and I have been proud to have done so. For they have done very important groundbreaking work over the years challenging the inanities and distortions of the 'mainstream' media. They have for example written important critiques of mainstream media coverage of dangerous climate change, of Iraq Body Count, of the corporate nature of most of our media, and much more besides. They have held the corporate media to account time and again. They ought to be saluted for all of that. It is therefore with a sense of deep regret (as well as of some foreboding) that I have finally to write to address the ways in which, lately, some of the wheels seem to be coming off their wagon. An early warning sign perhaps was their long-running spat with George Monbiot, over the Rwandan genocide and the terrible atr...

East of England Green Party Co-ordinator, Rupert Read, and Green Party Deputy Leader, Adrian Ramsay, will join local health campaigners opposing the privatisation of the National Health Service and will protest outside the office of Liberal Democrat MP Simon Wright (Norwich South) at 5pm on Friday 21st October (2 Douro Place).   Last month, Adrian Ramsay used his party conference speech to attack the Government's proposed reforms of the NHS and called on the Conservatives and LibDems to reconsider their proposals.   He stated: "The private companies will bid for the services that are easiest to run – they won't bid for the expensive services that don't make any profit. The NHS will be left with those services that are essential to people's health but don't make profits. Far from this helping the public finances, it will place more ...

I spoke at U. of London on Wittgenstein and philosophical liberation, last week. Here is the talk: http://rupertread.fastmail.co.uk/Talk%20on%20therapy%20in%20London  (Warning: this is a very big file) Let me know what you think!

A weekend of introduced screenings and open discussions manchester metropolitan university, cheshire faculty all screenings and discussions will be held in the crewe lecture theatre, unless otherwise stated. FRIDAY NOVEMBER 25TH 1500 stefano ciammaroni [mmu] the shining [stanley kubrick, 1980] this screening to take place in couzens-0-01 1830 emma bell [brighton] inception [christopher nolan, 2010] SATURDAY NOVEMBER 26TH 1000 jenny chamarette [cambridge] demain on déménage (tomorrow we move) [chantal akerman, 2004] 1430 catherine Constable [warwick] bombshell [victor flemming, 1933] 1830 rupert read [uea] never let me go [mark romanek, 2010] SUNDAY NOVEMBER 27TH 1030 tom greaves [uea] man on wire [james marsh, 2008] 1430 david sorfa [ljmu] stranger than fiction [mark forster, 2006] Free. All welcome. For more info, contact phil hutchinson: p.hutchinson@mmu.ac.uk

I am speaking on #Wittgenstein this coming Wednesday, at the Institute of Education, in London (Bedford Street), at 5.30. Maybe see you there.    In this talk, I will explore the way in which a Wittgensteinian 'therapeutic' (liberatory) vision of philosophy changes radically our understanding of what kind of knowledge, if any, a philosopher has, what kind of 'expertise' she has. But this is not even a matter of interest narrowly to philosophers. If affects every discipline which, as Winch would have it, shares or inherits any of philosophy's character. Examples include education, economics, and 'social science' in general.

Check out my newest philosophy blogpost: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=3288

Concerned about the cost to us all of the govt's high-speed London-Brham rail boondoggle? Me too. For more, see here: http://www.highspeedrail.org.uk/hs2cost/