Missive. posted by Richard Seymour

Dear Reader,

The earthquake, the tsunamis, the dead. 60,000 of them at the latest count, ranging from Thailand to Somalia - and barely a word said about it that does not damn the dead with boredom, repetition and bad faith. What? You dare to doubt me? Have a random look at some of the punditry and leader columns on this issue if you can do so without vomiting. I'll come to some of that in a minute.

What is the solution? Well, call me a cynic if you like, but I prefer to have someone to blame. Thousands dead? Seen it before, and records are made to be broken - without someone to blame and with few avenues for making a difference (yes, donate your post-Christmas change by all means), there is little left to do but pontificate over the fucking obvious. So, an acquaintance of mine - who is not unfamiliar with seismology - helped me out by putting it all in perspective: "Oh yeah, see, but this is the hand of God. Those people, they're not going down to Thailand to see the beaches, they're going for dirty things with children which enraged God." Well, I answered through a mucus-soaked hanky (minor 'flu attack), He certainly put a stop to that, didn't He? And aside from taking His time, He seems to have taken a few thousand who didn't meddle with children. "How do you know?" Came the hopeless reply. I subsided into my chair and blew long and hard into my fetid rag.

Which is as good a metaphor as any for what columnists and pundits have been up to over the last couple of days. Take David Aaronovitch , for instance. Well, somebody has to. For a punctilious lack of wit (he prefers sarcasm) and a simultaneous devotion to moralism (as opposed to morality), few can match him. And by imputing a 'lack of wit', I mean to invoke Martin Amis' beautifully put footnote from his memoir, Experience:

"And by calling him humorless I mean to impugn his seriousness, categorically: such a man must rig up his probity ex nihilo."

Today's sermon from Aaronovitch sums up a few of the pertinent facts, airily dismisses what 'some people say' (we are never allowed to know who) and then proceeds to conjure up the apocalypse:

Dennis Smith used the occasion of the Indian Ocean disaster to argue that now was the time to reduce the La Palma mountain in size, "to lessen the impact should it ever slide into Atlantic." "But, who," Smith asked, "will pay for such a huge reduction of a landmass?" Hmm. What country is New York in?

Similarly one day we will be hit by a gigantic asteroid if we don't work out a way of intercepting them in space. Not soon, maybe (or maybe very soon), but it's going to happen. But when Dubya confided his pre-election desire to restart the US space programme, he was widely laughed at.

Mountains falling into oceans, gigantic asteroids, Dubya being laughed at? Never heard that before. The La Palma problem is a genuine one, although I leave it to scientists to judge whether chopping a volcano in half is not fraught with danger. The space programme has always been a matter of geopolitics. The original moon landing race was a bipolar affair, with America and Russia urgently scrabbling to make space a 'sphere of influence'. One could, and should, read the current babble about conquering Mars as an extention of the PNAC desire to take advantage of the 'window of opportunity' afforded by the absence of a serious superpower rival and entrench the US' dominion. It is well enough reported that the civilian and military space programmes are converging, and some of those reports suggest that it would cost up to $1 trillion. True enough, with that money, no region need do without warning systems, (or AIDS drugs, or adequate nutriments come to that). But with an enemy like a "gigantic asteroid", are you prepared to take that risk?

Aaronovitch proceeds with a few swipes against those alleged to be retreating into 'parochialism' and an 'idealised village life' because they don't believe what them there doctors and science folks tell 'em, then returns to his usual form:

This coming year, Gordon Brown told us this week, is "make or break" for development in poorer countries. The chancellor is calling on G8 countries to match Britain's commitment to reach the long-touted, never-achieved target of 0.7% of national income going on aid. He is also taking the initiative on debt reduction.

If past reactions are anything to go by we will react to the government's emphasis on world interdependence in one of two ways. We will either complain that what it is doing is not enough - and then do nothing ourselves. Or we will suggest that there are bigger and more immediate priorities here at home that preclude "gallivanting" around the globe.

There seems to be no way of condemning the government fairly. If we say Brown's actions are a drop in the ocean ranged against a mega-tsunami of debt which Western governments and banks are largely responsible for, then we are hypocrites for not doing enough ourselves. I don't personally own a bank, nor work for the government. One does attempt to make the government actually represent us by demonstrating and the like, but Aaronovitch seems to get piqued when people do that. This is, after all, a democracy and not a mobocracy. Still, it is an impressive journey - from the dead in Thailand to faith in our government via collapsing mountains and gigantic asteroids. The end was never in doubt, but the journey was spectacular.

There's more, but let's leave the journos to one side. Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary who has the looks, but not the charm, of Lembit Opik, has been doing the rounds over this. He insists that the government is doing a great deal, thanks, and would appreciate it if citizens devoted themselves to helping 'close the gap' between the rich and the poor in the world economy. This is like Osama bin Laden calling on Muslims to reduce the level of non-state violence in the world. The United States, on the other hand, merely wishes the world to know that it is "not stingy" after it was criticised by the UN for proffering a measly $15m in aid. They added another $20m, making it $35 million - which is about a third of Bush's advertising budget during the 2004 election. Britain, by the way, has given $29m or £15m, approximately 1% of what the Millenium Dome eventually cost. Disasters, social and natural, tend to reveal where real priorities lie. Well, consider:

The UN claims that the cost of the rescue operations alone will run into billions . Billions. And some would rather we spent it all on occupying Mars.