Bill Killed: David Carradine found dead in Thailand

He may have done Bruce Lee out of his coveted role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s series, Kung Fu, and looked damn stoopid in yellowface, but actor David Carradine still gave lots of pleasure once you got past the adhesive tape.

Now the man who played the psycho Bill, boss of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and who met his nemesis in Uma Thurman's Beatrix AKA The Bride in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, is dead. Found with a rope around his neck in Thailand.

All that eastern spiritual hokum and you still go out this way. So sad.

RIP David Carradine, 1936-2009

Bill Killed: David Carradine found dead in Thailand

He may have done Bruce Lee out of his coveted role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s series, Kung Fu, and looked damn stoopid in yellowface, but actor David Carradine still gave lots of pleasure once you got past the adhesive tape.

Now the man who played the psycho Bill, boss of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, and who met his nemesis in Uma Thurman's Beatrix AKA The Bride in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, is dead. Found with a rope around his neck in Thailand.

All that eastern spiritual hokum and you still go out this way. So sad.

RIP David Carradine, 1936-2009

Who's Left?: how the Left failed the Big Test

In my latest New Internationalist column, Who's Left (May 2009), I wonder why the far-left has been so useless in putting forward the socialist argument when capitalism has been caught eating itself so spectacularly.

I watched stunned while over ten years the dominant strand within the Marxist left did over other leftists whenever a wave of solidarity manifested in positive action. Every time they welcomed someone with "talent", you gradually realised this was a ticket to ostracism, backstabbing and gleeful fantasies of Kronstadt-style discipline ("We should have shot them down like partridges", I kid you not).

It wasn't as if the movement was big or vibrant enough to withstand such losses. They may have stood on podiums lecturing the grunts about how every member is like gold dust in their "every sperm is sacred" spiel, but in practice they squandered the chief resource of any movement: its activists.

Corruption isn't just the preserve of bourgeois liberal politicians; it's a mindset. I was shocked to see the same motives of greed, power, fame and jealousy totally eclipsing the common cause in an Olympic bout of territorial pissing. Totally bonkers when they themselves had identified a limited window of opportunity following Blair's election in 1997 and the inevitable disillusion for anyone who hadn't been observing the upwards trajectory of the Tory creep.

Now that the public has seen through the political class the Left is nowhere. Today's local elections should have sent votes into the stratosphere, even if it was just in protest. But we know they won't.

It's good to see Independent columnist Mark Steel picking up on this at last, but as so many of them knew about this problem for ages and declined to help those of us who were trying to challenge such destructive behaviour, why has it taken so long? It's no good waiting until the axe is about to fall on you. That's not what comradeship and good politics is about. Anyone who's read the Pastor Niemoller T-shirt knows that: "First they came for the Communists ..."

I'd suggest that in turning a blind eye and failing to support dissenters those stalwarts of the left have been part of the very problem they now condemn. They can hardly complain now their own past practice is biting them on the bum.

Who's Left?: how the Left failed the Big Test

In my latest New Internationalist column, Who's Left (May 2009), I wonder why the far-left has been so useless in putting forward the socialist argument when capitalism has been caught eating itself so spectacularly.

I watched stunned while over ten years the dominant strand within the Marxist left did over other leftists whenever a wave of solidarity manifested in positive action. Every time they welcomed someone with "talent", you gradually realised this was a ticket to ostracism, backstabbing and gleeful fantasies of Kronstadt-style discipline ("We should have shot them down like partridges", I kid you not).

It wasn't as if the movement was big or vibrant enough to withstand such losses. They may have stood on podiums lecturing the grunts about how every member is like gold dust in their "every sperm is sacred" spiel, but in practice they squandered the chief resource of any movement: its activists.

Corruption isn't just the preserve of bourgeois liberal politicians; it's a mindset. I was shocked to see the same motives of greed, power, fame and jealousy totally eclipsing the common cause in an Olympic bout of territorial pissing. Totally bonkers when they themselves had identified a limited window of opportunity following Blair's election in 1997 and the inevitable disillusion for anyone who hadn't been observing the upwards trajectory of the Tory creep.

Now that the public has seen through the political class the Left is nowhere. Today's local elections should have sent votes into the stratosphere, even if it was just in protest. But we know they won't.

It's good to see Independent columnist Mark Steel picking up on this at last, but as so many of them knew about this problem for ages and declined to help those of us who were trying to challenge such destructive behaviour, why has it taken so long? It's no good waiting until the axe is about to fall on you. That's not what comradeship and good politics is about. Anyone who's read the Pastor Niemoller T-shirt knows that: "First they came for the Communists ..."

I'd suggest that in turning a blind eye and failing to support dissenters those stalwarts of the left have been part of the very problem they now condemn. They can hardly complain now their own past practice is biting them on the bum.

Dalai Lama the Teenager: it's so unfair!

Pity the poor Dalai Lama. For twenty years his followers have been grooming his chosen reincarnation of a spiritual leader and treating him like a god ever since they found him as a three-year old in Granada. And what does the little ingrate go and do? He discovers girls 'n' football and now won't sport a shaven head as a mark of his holiness, but wears it long like like his peers instead.

"They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal," said Osel Hita Torres.

They also made him live next to Richard Gere. Ker-rist! Can he sue?

Anyhow, good to know that all the Chinese have to do with the next one is swamp him with Playstations and telly and that's Tibet sorted.

Dalai Lama the Teenager: it's so unfair!

Pity the poor Dalai Lama. For twenty years his followers have been grooming his chosen reincarnation of a spiritual leader and treating him like a god ever since they found him as a three-year old in Granada. And what does the little ingrate go and do? He discovers girls 'n' football and now won't sport a shaven head as a mark of his holiness, but wears it long like like his peers instead.

"They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal," said Osel Hita Torres.

They also made him live next to Richard Gere. Ker-rist! Can he sue?

Anyhow, good to know that all the Chinese have to do with the next one is swamp him with Playstations and telly and that's Tibet sorted.