Andy D'Agorne

After the weekend of checking out the effects of the highest floods since 2000, we now have suffered a day of gales - I took the precaution of using the bus rather than the bike and was glad that I had! Local radio told me that the highest recorded speed inthe UK was 99mph, and this afternoon all Arriva double decker buses were taken out of service, HGVs were blown off motorway bridges etc. Walking home, I came across another of our trees blown over - this time in Tower Gardens and another one there snapped about 1m above ground level. The riverside path that has just emerged from the floods has started to flood again at Blue Bridge Lane (this picture shows what it was like on Sunday) and more rain is on itsway for tomorrow with snow up on the hills. Even Princess Anne has been on TV tonight examining the effects of climate change in Antarctica saying we have to clean up our lifestyle. The really worrying thing is to think that this is the effect of our CO2 emissions when Mrs T was still running the country - this tanker is goingto take some turning round!

If you want to have a say in the vexed question of whether or not the electoral fortunes of the Greens will be turned around by giving someone the title 'leader' then you need to be planning an animated weekend in Swansea! Those of us with elections in May might just decide to wait for the referendum of the membership, and spend the time doing the traditional approach of knocking on doors and putting out leaflets rather than looking for the next David Ike (look how much fortune came our way with that episode in our history!)

For the latest details go to www.greenparty.org.uk and select Conference

From left to right at our Christmas 2006 outing Peter, Dave, Andy (Chase) me(!).. and.. as they say in't song.. 'behind every great man...' Denise (hiding), then (standing) Richard (who keeps us organised) Will, Candy (asleep after her new commuting routine?) and Mark 

If you are from one of the other parties contesting the local elections in May 2007, you get five points for spotting one of these people out leafletting and ten points if they are canvassing. You will have to scour our newsletters to find a picture of Alan, but you still only only get two points for spotting him on the doorstep! Two points if you see me out and about on my bike (and no points if it is from a passing car!)  

And finally an extra five points if you identify the quiet bar that Dave took us to (well, it was quiet until we got there- if you were the couple who left soon after we came in, sorry for disturbing your quiet evening drink!)

Well, flood levels today have peaked at 4.4m above the summer normal levels, cutting off the A19 at Fulford for the first time since the 'once in 100 years' floods of Nov 2000. High winds 60-70mph have blown over lorries on the A1 causing traffic choas there too.  My trip by bike to work today was a bit more interesting than usual - Choosing the path through Fulford allotments in preference to the flooding near the water treatment plant brought me out to an expanse of water, stretching from the wall on New Walk across and into Rowntrees Park. The route through from the Millennium Bridge to Hospital Fields that generally remains passable when New Walk is flooded was blocked by a stretch of water. One cyclist who didnt want to turn back to Fulford Rd tried it, but got half way through before being forced to get off and walk through knee deep water

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Over on the Butcher Terrace side, the lowest part of the path was underwater but it was possible to walk round on the grass. By the time I came back tonight the sodden grass was getting deeper and deeper in muddy tyre tracks through the narrowing 'land bridge' to reach the span across the Ouse - just made it without getting stuck in 3" mud. A real shame that the bridge designers didnt think to make this short section of path just that little bit higher! Meanwhile the Knavesmire is beginning to look like a decent boating lake. Forecast is for it to go down gradually, but with more rain forecast next week we could be in for a prolonged spell of this level of flooding which will not help our trees on New Walk. And then of course the silt will need to be washed off onto the ever higher mounds between the walk and the river. Perhaps I should start a book on how long we will have to put up with the mud before the council heads south with their hired water bowser to clean New Walk.

I hadnt heard of this event either, until I was invited to join the great and the good of our city at the Lord Mayor's Breakfast this week. However you need to know that the Indian Film industry is bigger than Hollywood, and their equivalent of the Oscars will be given out at the Sheffield Arena this year, with a worldwide audience of over 350 million!

Previous years events have been hosted in Singapore, Dubai, Amsterdam etc. A consortium of five Yorkshire cities will be in the spotlight this June, with a fringe festival and lots of business opportunities to make trading links with the fast growing Indian economy. The cities are Hull, York, Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield. Bradford is no stranger to events such as a Mela, but for the first time one will be held in Hull. York will be hosting a glitzy fashion show close to or in one of our key historic buildings.

And what about the breakfast? Well being veggie, I passed on the bacon or sausage buttie and opted to follow Radio York presenter Elli Fiorentini in having fruit salad and Longley Farm yoghurt. When we get the first Green Lord Mayor we will introduce Quorn sausages and 'cheating bacon' on brown bread to go with the muesli and fresh fruit! And of course we will ditch those aweful coffee machines in the committee rooms that use a sachet of plastic every time you have a drink to end up swelling our landfill sites. (reminds me must start taking a flask again)

Not exactly relaxing, but not sure where else it fits. I dont endorse everything in this in terms of parallels but it is thought provoking enough to be worthy of reading and pondering on in terms of our modern day response.

WHEN DEMOCRACY FAILED: THE WARNINGS OF HISTORY

By Thom Hartmann. See end re copyright/reposting. Posted April 7, 2003.

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at our disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."

Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

Tonight we had the first meeting of the scrutiny looking at Highways maintenance procurement and the bid for DfT 'Pathfinder PFI funding. It was something of an Alice in Wonderland discussion, with councillors pondering how to set out a programme of 'investigation' to be concluded in one or two months covering a process that has been on the go since 2001. Senior officers were quite genuinely perplexed at how we might cover the remit of comparing the options for providing Highway Maintenance when they have been working for literally years on understanding the process and issues.

The Labour leader was quick to point to the inadequate consideration of long term budget implications, when set alongsidethe PFI bid for the waste strategy, that also has an 'affordability gap' within it. I made the point that we are really trying to scrutinise the whole budget process. The press article today was particularly interesting to read, with Labour saying that they 'want to be sure it is right for the city' and the Lib Dem leader saying that he is personally sceptical of the Government push for councils to use PFI but 'it is the only show in town'.

Basically both leaders know that the city is in a mess in terms of its long term financial situation but dont like to admit it as it means unpopular cuts in services and continuing rises in council tax. Much of the councils funding in recent years has come from the boom in development - selling off council property at a good price and Section 106 payments to pay for more school places, maintaining local parks, staffing planning department even repairing roads etc, but this is not sustainable in the long term. PFI is the latest wheeze, but millions will be spent just preparing specifications, contracts etc and then monitoring to try ensure that the contractor delivers the goods and maintains things in a decent state after the initial major spending is over.

The outcome of the 'Expression of Interest' is expected in Jan /Feb 2007 and if 'successful' this would then lead to an 'outline business case' by Sept 2007, working towards a 25 year contract from 2010.Of course once in place there would be even less chance of a local councillor getting a pothole or paving slab fixed than now - if it is not covered in the contract you might as well live on an unadopted road!

At the Planning East committee that gave approval for the innovative Eco Business Centre on Clifton Moor, councillors agreed to the proposal from Green Councillor Andy D'Agorne that the provision for cyclists on site should be improved. The business start up centre that will replace managed workshops and offices at Fishergate and Parkside features an eco friendly design with solar panels, a wind turbine, rainwater recycling and high insulation to keep running costs low for start up businesses.

However Councillor D'Agorne criticised the location of cycle parking, near the loading bay to the rear of the building, with no separate access route separate from delivery vehicles. " If we want to promote sustainable transport and reduce car parking difficulties, this sends the wrong message to tenants and visitors to this otherwise excellent project" he said. It was agreed to delegate to Council planners a review of the cycle arrangements with the developer to see whether the parking could be put in a more secure, convenient and safely accessible location on the site.

Clifton Moor Business Association had criticised the fact that the site will only have 40 car parking spaces for 40 office units and 32 workshops, but planners said this was close to the maximum standards intended to limit extra traffic generated by the development.

Cllr D'Agorne also called for better cycle routes in the area to connect to the city centre and nearby residential areas. "If the council wants people to cycle to locations like this, there must be safe routes provided in the area as well as at the access point to the site" he said. Cllr D'Agorne complained that there was no off or on road cycle-lanes planned on the access road that will be adopted by the local authority as part of the development.