Benny Morris London: I. B Tauris, 2002, £24.50, h/b In report after report on the major media we hear about or see pictures of ‘refugee camps’ in Israel – and no-one ever explains from where the refugees came. Perhaps editors think we know already. Benny Morris is an Israeli historian who became well known … Read more
In the course of my research into the U.S. Army LSD tests (see Lobster 23) among the U.S. Army records, I encountered a few vague references to similar experiments conducted in the U.K.. On February 28, 1993 I faxed a letter to Dr. Graham S. Pearson, the Director of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment … Read more
Tons of documents and tape recordings recovered from an old manor house in Lancashire reveal the true depths of corruption in English provincial life at the end of the twentieth century. Owen Oyston was the British Labour Party’s biggest private financial contributor in the Thatcher years. The millionaire owner of radio stations and glossy magazines … Read more
Policing London No 13 July/August Includes 6 pages on the miners, which compliments GLC report (see below); two page summary of recent police harassment of gays; summary of changes to date in Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. Still the best thing of its kind extant. £1 per issue: from Police Committee Support Unit (DG/PCS/602) County … Read more
There is an unmistakable thread running through America’s move eastward since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Using their vast economic clout – in the form of loans, grants and sanctions – and backed by threatening military supremacy (to say nothing of the devious use of ‘unattributable’ mercenary groups such as the MPRI), … Read more
Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (Boston: Little Brown, 1997) Seymour Hersh is one of those figures with no real equivalent in British journalism. For one thing, the budgets, the armies of fact-checkers and, indeed, the market for this sort of extended politico-analytical foray just does not exist over here. Writing from a … Read more
Snitch Culture: How the citizens are turned into the eyes and ears of the state Jim Redden, Feral House, U.S., 2000, $16.95 (pb) Earth Rising: The Revolution, Toward a Thousand Years of Peace Dr Nick Begich and James Roderick Earthpulse Press, Ancorage, Alaska $17.95, 2000 (pb) (available through Flatland) ‘We live in a society driven … Read more
Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith Feral House, PO Box 3466, Portland, OR 97208 (), 1996, $19.95 Of all the current parapolitical ‘biggies’ floating around, the one I would not have enjoyed trying to piece together is this one; and I am grateful to Thomas and Keith for doing so. Casolaro was, on this account, a … Read more
Police use of computers Unreported in the daily papers in this country, Merseyside County Council recently decided to refuse the funding for Merseyside Police’s criminal intelligence computer. (Detailed account in Computing 13th September 1984) This is the most significant step to date in the struggle to get some kind of control established over policing methods. … Read more
Abstract The Tribunal established to investigate complaints about phone-tapping and the activities of the intelligence agencies has, at its first ever public hearing, quashed rules made by the Home Secretary forcing the tribunal to hold all its hearings in secret. However, the Tribunal procedure remains too secret, and its decisions cannot be appealed. Malcolm Kennedy’s … Read more
